The university men's ekiden season dominates the calendar in Japan, three main races spanning an arc from October's Izumo Ekiden, 6 stages totaling 45.1 km, November's National University Ekiden, 8 stages totaling 106.8 km, and the biggest of them all, January's Hakone Ekiden, 10 stages over 2 days totaling 217.1 km.
This year's season kicks off Monday at Izumo, where 2022-2023 winner Komazawa University tries to make it 3 in a row. Despite losing 2 of last year's top members, Taiyo Yasuhara and Mebuki Suzuki, to graduation and the absence of star 3rd-year Keita Sato who is still rehabbing an injury, Komazawa's team is almost exactly as strong as it was last year, when it won by 2 minutes despite being ranked only 4th in the field.
But out of the 9 Kanto Region teams in the Izumo field, Komazawa is the only one that isn't stronger on weighted average of its 6 fastest men over 5000 m and 10000 m. That means it comes in ranked 6th, still a solid contender for top 3 but a stretch for the win. Captain Kotaro Shinohara is fresh off a JPN-born outdoor 5000 m collegiate record 13:15.70 two weeks ago in Niigata and 1st-year Shunsuke Kuwata stepped up the same weekend with a 13:39.47 PB, so chances are good Komazawa will come in swinging even without Sato.
At the top of the rankings is the Ivy League Select Team, which includes people like Kieran Tuntivate, Acer Iverson, Perry Mackinnon and Matthew Pereira who are as good as the best Japan has produced. But last year the Ivies were ranked #2 and finished only 13th out of 21 teams, so it's probably best not to get too excited. Excluding 2 years when it had non-Ivy members, in 20 appearances the Ivy League has only made top 10 twice, finishing 9th in 2015 and 10th in 2017. Doing it again this year would be impressive given how good all the other teams are.
Aoyama Gakuin University was ranked 3rd last year and finished only 5th, but it went on to win Hakone and has had a lot of momentum since then. 4th-year Masaya Tsurukawa ran a 13:18.51 this season, at the time the best-ever outdoor 5000 m mark by a Japanese-born collegiate runner before Shinohara eclipsed it, and overall AGU has the fastest 6-man 5000 m average in the field, 13:32.96. It's a heavy favorite for the win.
Assuming every team is at 100%, which never happens, the best bets to give AGU a race for the win are Koku Gakuin University, 4th last year, and Soka University, 2nd last year. KGU has the fastest 6-man 10000 m average in the field after the Ivy League, 28:12.42, the fastest half marathon average, 1:01:48, and includes 1:00:43 half marathoner Ayumu Yamamoto and 2:06:18 marathoner Kiyoto Hirabayashi. Half marathon credentials will be more relevant at Nationals and Hakone, and if there's a weakness in KGU's armor it's the 5000 m, where it has only the 7th-best 6-man average.
Soka finished 2nd last year 2 minutes behind Komazawa but had its team placing stripped when Kenyan Kamina Leakey had a positive drug test after coming back from training at home. Even with him gone the Soka team is superior to last year's, especially over the 10000 m where it's ranked #3 at 28:19.39 on 6-man average. Under head coach Kazutaka Enoki Soka has tended to punch above its weight, and given how it ran last year it'll probably land some pretty solid punches on AGU and KGU.
Slightly back from the 3 favorites, Josai University has been building toward something special, finishing 3rd at Izumo last year, 5th at Nationals and then a surprising 3rd at Hakone. It's the only team in the field apart from the Ivies to have two men under 28 minutes for 10000 m, 3rd-years Victor Kimutai and Shoya Saito, but at this point in the season it's a little susceptible to a lack of depth, dependent on them and 4th-year Itsuki Hirabayashi with a gap back to the rest of the team.
Komazawa leads a trio of teams another step back, with Daito Bunka University making it back to Izumo after taking 10th at Hakone, and last year's 6th-place finisher Waseda University. Both teams are on the way up, DBU led by 1st-years Takuma Ohama and Evans Kiprop and Waseda by 4th-year Taishi Ito and this year's national XC champ Tomonori Yamaguchi. DBU's strengths lead more toward 10000 m and Waseda's to 5000 m, so with an average stage length of 7.52 km Izumo will be the perfect meeting in the middle.
After that it's a race between the last 3 Kanto Region teams and maybe the Ivy League to make the top 10. Toyo University is ranked 9th but is another team that usually runs higher than potential, having finished 8th last year. The biggest stroke against it is the absence, again, of senior Kosuke Ishida, who had a stellar track season after missing all of last year's ekiden season. Finishing 9th behind Toyo last year, Hosei University is ranked 10th this time around. Teikyo University made Izumo off a 9th-place finish at Hakone, but its strengths lie mostly at the half marathon distance and it would need a great day and some luck to make top 10 here.
Almost all the best male high school distance runners go to college in the Kanto Region to have a chance to run Hakone, meaning that it's tough for even a single school from any other region to beat even the last Kanto team. Izumo is pretty much the only place it ever happens, but it doesn't look like this will be one of the years where it does. With PBs of 13:49.54, 28:28.40 and 1:02:44 Kyoto Sangyo University 4th-year Kaito Kojima is definitely good enough to have gone to any of the top Kanto programs, but as a team KSU's top 6 averages of 14:11.96, 29:16.07 and 1:04:34 don't even come within 2 seconds per km of bottom-ranked Kanto team Teikyo's, so it would probably take someone on another team getting into serious trouble for them to have a shot of running down even 1 Kanto school.
Fuji TV has the live Izumo broadcast starting at 13:00 local time Monday. JRN will be on-site in Izumo to cover the race live.
© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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