Princess Ekiden Preview and Streaming

Sunday is the Princess Ekiden, the official qualifying race for November's Queens Ekiden, the season-ending national championship race for corporate women's teams. The top 8 placers at last year's Queens Ekiden, Sekisui Kagaku, Japan Post, Panasonic, Shiseido, Daihatsu, Daiichi Seimei, Tenmaya and Iwatani Sangyo, auto-qualified for 2024, leaving the rest of the league's teams to line up in Fukuoka at the Princess Ekiden in hopes of joining them. 30 teams will compete for 16 places at the Queens Ekiden, each with a team of 6 running a total of 42.195 km. TBS is broadcasting the race live starting at 11:50, with streaming on Youtube.

16th at Queens last year, Kyudenko has scratched from Sunday's race due to athlete injuries preventing them from having enough people ready to run. 22nd at Queens, Yamada Holdings is also out because it couldn't field 6 runners, one reason being the transfer of one of its star runners, Sakiho Tsutsui, to Universal Entertainment. Their absence opens to door for two of the teams on the cusp to make it this time.

Up top on the entry list it's pretty safe to assume that at least the top 10 teams will make it. #1-ranked Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo's entry list includes 5000 m Paris Olympian Wakana Kabasawa, and former collegiate 10000 m record holder Narumi Kobayashi is also on their list after a long time away with injury. #3-ranked Uniqlo features 1500 m Paris Olympic team member Yume Goto.

Tsutsui isn't on Universal's roster, but down near the bottom of the top 10 Shimamura's list does include recent transfer Yuka Ando. The next team below them, Hitachi, doesn't have a Kenyan in its lineup this time around, leaving it vulnerable to some of the teams closer to the cutoff line like Nitori and Toyota Jidoshokki that do.

Speaking of vulnerability, bib #14 Wacoal is hurt by Ando's transfer to Shimamura, and with only 7 runners on its list it's a little susceptible to potential race day sickness or injury issues. Below them, as the 15th and 16th-ranked Toyota Jidoshokki and Daiso stand to benefit from Kyudenko and Yamada's DNS status.

Past that point, the list includes formerly strong teams like Sysmex, Noritz, Toto and Denso, any of which would love to make it back into the fold, bank teams 18 Ginko, Kagoshima Ginko and Higo Ginko, and relative newcomers like Bears, Tokyo Metro, and first-timers Shin Nihon Jusetsu Group. SNJG has exactly six runners on its entry list and is even more vulnerable to a race morning setback than Wacoal.

Princess Ekiden Start List

Fukuoka, 20 Oct. 2024

30 teams, 6 stages, 42.195 km

top 16 qualify for Queens Ekiden

complete field listing

1. Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo

2. Edion

3. Uniqlo

4. Route Inn Hotels

5. Starts

6. Otsuka Seiyaku

7. Universal Entertainment

9. Kyocera

10. Shimamura

11. Hitachi

12. Senko

13. Nitori

14. Wacoal

15. Canon

16. Toyota Jidoshokki

17. Daiso

18. Sysmex

19. Ehime Ginko

20. Bears

21. 18 Ginko

22. Kagoshima Ginko

23. SID Group

24. Tokyo Metro

25. Noritz

26. Memolead

27. Toto

28. Aichi Denki

29. Higo Ginko

30. Denso

31. Shin Nihon Jusetsu Group

Murayama and Sasaki Making U.S. Debut at New York Mini 10 km

Every year since 2012 that there's been a United Airlines NYC Half , JRN has partnered with the NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon to bring two top-tier collegiate Japanese men to the NYC Half for what's usually been their international debuts. For years we've wanted to extend that program to include top collegiate women, but that has always faced 2 problems. For one, while the half marathon distance is the main focus for Japanese collegiate men due to the stage lengths at the Hakone Ekiden, few collegiate women run it. Those that do run the National University Women's Half Marathon in Matsue, held the same day as the NYC Half. This year, though, we're finally making it happen in a slightly different way. Amisa Murayama and Nazuki Sasaki of 2025 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national collegiate championship runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University are joining the field for the NYRR's Mastercard New York Mini 10 km on June 6. After running an 18:14 CR ...

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Some Reflections on the Ekiden

by Brett Larner This ekiden season I've had a few thoughts kicking around, and watching this week's Hakone Ekiden a few of them became clearer. These are still in progress, but at the moment this is what I'm thinking in terms of running as a spectator sport and about the quality of Japanese men's distance running right now. Quality: Japanese men's running is coming up very, very quickly. I was in the lead car at November's Ageo City Half Marathon , where 18 men, 17 of them university runners, broke 63 minutes. As it was going on we all thought it was a slow race because there were so many people running that pace all the way, no separation at all in the mass of the pack. See the JRN header photo above, taken just past halfway. That's pretty unusual in Japan, especially at the university level; generally you'll get a handful of guys who run an aggressive pace and a mass running dead on a safe pace, 3:00/km in a half marathon, for example. Th...

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