We're deep into championship ekiden season. Over the last two weekends the six regions making up the corporate leagues held their qualifying races for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships. The New Year Ekiden is one of the only national-level championship ekidens that doesn't give its podium finishers auto-qualifying spots for the next year, meaning every team has to run the regional races every November. It's not hard to see how that eats into the fall marathon season and how doing it the same way they do for all the other big ekidens, including the corporate women's national championships later this month, and having the top teams auto-qualify, would open up the fall schedule and improve Japan's performances in men's marathoning. But it is what it is right now.
In place of an auto-qualifying spot for podium finishers, the national corporate federation redistributes the wealth of qualifying slots available in each region based on how the teams in that region did at the New Year Ekiden the year before. The East Japan Region where Tokyo is located was a bloodbath this year in regional race on Nov. 3, with only 10 slots available to at least 17 teams with a realistic chance of qualifying. GMO led start to finish off a 32:42 CR on the 11.6 km 1st leg by Yuya Yoshida and fastest times on 4 of the 7 legs overall. Sunbelx was a surprise at 3rd, its best-ever result, Fujitsu landing 4th despite a 29:38 CR on the 10.6 km 6th leg by Yuhei Urano. SID Group took 10th, edging out Konica Minolta by 1:19 for the last qualifying spot. Other non-qualifiers included Press Kogyo, Comodi Iida, ND Software, Fujisan no Meisui, Komori Corporation and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
9 slots were open in the Kyushu Region the same day, and with only 8 strong teams all any of them had to do to qualify was basically show up and finish. The first 5 of the race's 7 legs were exciting and full of turnover, with 3 different teams taking turns leading and 5 occupying a place in the top 3 at some point. Ryo Saito of Asahi Kasei ran down Kurosaki Harima's Daisuke Doi on the 5th leg to put Asahi Kasei 1 second ahead, and the last two stages couldn't have been more dramatic. Asahi Kasei and Kurosaki Harima's 6th runners Kenta Murayama and Tomonobu Tamura both ran identical times, handing off to anchors Akira Aizawa and Sota Fukutani with the same 1-second margin. Aizawa brought AK home for the win with exactly the same margin, 1 second. Behind AK's B-team and two select teams, Togami Denki picked up the 9th qualifying spot almost 4 minutes behind 8th qualifier Nishitetsu.
A week later the other four regions did their thing on Nov. 10. In the combined Chubu and Hokuriku Region race, Toyota Boshoku ran a course record 3:51:03 for 80.5 km, the fastest average pace of any team across the 6 qualifying races, to beat 2024 New Year Ekiden champion Toyota by over a minute. That said, Toyota's strength was split with a B-team whose lead runner Tatsuya Maruyama outran the A-team's Yusaku Nomura by 2 seconds. Perpetual Hokuriku winner YKK did it again, but this time with an almost 5-minute CR for the Hokuriku division that put it 3rd overall against the most much stronger Chubu Region teams.
Not much drama came in the Chugoku Region race, which had 5 qualifying slots this year for its 4 traditionally strong teams. Chudenko was 1st as usual in 4:00:18, over two minutes up on 2nd-placer Chugoku Denryoku. The much weaker Takeda Yakuhin team lucked out with the extra spot available this time, taking an easy 5th almost 13 minutes behind 4th-placer JFE Steel and over 13 minutes up on 6th-place Hoshizaki.
Apart from East Japan, the Kansai Region was the only one where any legit team really had a chance of not qualifying, with 4 slots available to 6 teams good enough to make it. SG Holdings led wire to wire to win by 2 1/2 minutes, but 2nd through 4th-placers Otsuka Seiyaku, Osaka Gas and Sumitomo Denko all finished close together to pick up the other qualifying spots. NTT Nishi Nihon was the surprise non-qualifier, anchor Hazuma Hattori run down by Sumitomo Denko's Kazuki Tamura after NTT had spent the 2nd through 6th legs inside the top 4 and as high as 2nd. The Osaka Police Department team also failed to qualify at 6th.
69th New Year Ekiden Entry List
Corporate Men's National Championship
Maebashi, Gunma, 1 Jan. 2025
times listed are average pace in regional qualifying race
Toyota Boshoku (Chubu) - 2:52.2 / km
Toyota (Chubu) - 2:53.1 / km
GMO (East Japan) - 2:54.3 / km
YKK (Hokuriku) - 2:54.9 / km
Asahi Kasei (Kyushu) - 2:55.5 / km
Toenec (Chubu) - 2:55.5 / km
Kurosaki Harima (Kyushu) - 2:55.6 / km
Yakult (East Japan) - 2:55.8 / km
Sunbelx (East Japan) - 2:56.1 / km
Aichi Seiko (Chubu) - 2:56.2 / km
Fujitsu (East Japan) - 2:56.4 / km
NTN (Chubu) - 2:56.4 / km
SG Holdings (Kansai) - 2:56.5 / km
Subaru (East Japan) - 2:56.6 / km
Logisteed (East Japan) - 2:56.8 / km
Aisan Kogyo (Chubu) - 2:57.1 / km
Chuo Hatsujo (Chubu) - 2:57.3 / km
Honda (East Japan) - 2:57.4 / km
Kao (East Japan) - 2:57.4 / km
JR Higashi Nihon (East Japan) - 2:57.5 / km
Yasukawa Denki (Kyushu) - 2:57.7 / km
Kyudenko (Kyushu) - 2:58.3 / km
Otsuka Seiyaku (Kansai) - 2:58.4 / km
Chudenko (Chugoku) - 2:58.4 / km
SID Group (East Japan) - 2:58.4 / km
Hiramatsu Byoin (Kyushu) - 2:58.7 / km
Sekino Kosan (Hokuriku) - 2:58.7 / km
Osaka Gas (Kansai) - 2:59.0 / km
Mitsubishi Juko (Kyushu) - 2:59.1 / km
Sumitomo Denko (Kansai) - 2:59.3 / km
Toyota Kyushu (Kyushu) - 2:59.7 / km
Chugoku Denryoku (Chugoku) - 3:00.0 / km
Nishitetsu (Kyushu) - 3:00.0 / km
Mazda (Chugoku) - 3:00.7 / km
JFE Steel (Chugoku) - 3:01.2 / km
Togami Denki (Kyushu) - 3:02.6 / km
Takeda Yakuhin (Chugoku) - 3:10.5 / km
© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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