Koku Gakuin Goes For the Triple Crown - 2025 Hakone Ekiden Preview

The biggest road race of the year is days away, with the Hakone Ekiden entering its second century on Jan. 2 and 3. 20 university teams and one select team race 217.1 km in 10 legs from central Tokyo to the mountains near Mt. Fuji and back, with Nippon TV broadcasting the whole thing live and nationwide to an audience in the tens of millions. TVer is streaming Day One here starting at 7:50 a.m. local time on Jan. 2, and Day Two here at 7:50 a.m. again. If you've got a VPN you should be good to go. JRN will be on-site at the Day One finish line and Day Two start line and will be doing some coverage on @JRNLive.

At October's Izumo Ekiden and November's National University Ekiden Koku Gakuin University, Komazawa University and Aoyama Gakuin University went 1-2-3, and the main question at Hakone is whether it'll be the same order again. Komazawa is the heavyweight legacy school of the three, with 8 wins and 18 top 3 finishes at Hakone in the last 25 years under executive head coach Hiroaki Oyagi. AGU has gone through an arc that saw it make the 10-deep podium under head coach Susumu Hara for the first time in 2010, win for the first time in 2015, and score 7 wins and 9 top 3 finishes since then. Coached by Komazawa grad Yasuhiro Maeda, KGU made the Hakone podium for the first time in 2011 and has only made the top 3 once, in 2020.

But this season KGU looks like it's going through the same kind of progression that AGU did, scoring wins at both Izumo and Nationals, and coming in to Hakone with the strongest team. A win would be not only its first but would make it only the 6th school, alongside Komazawa, AGU, Daito Bunka University, Juntendo University and Waseda University, to win all three ekidens in one season. What are its chances? On paper it's the best all-around team. It has 9 solid half marathoners led by 4th-year Ayumu Yamamoto and Osaka Marathon winner Kiyoto Hirabayashi, and with 2nd-years Kosei Atomura and Hiromichi Nonaka both at 28:30 or better for 10000 m it has enough people to field a good team. And the momentum to make it happen. If there's any crack in its armor it might be a lack of depth in alternates if any of its big names aren't on.

AGU is almost even with KGU, with better average 5000 m and 10000 m bests and 10 good half marathoners. It doesn't have the same front-end strength as KGU, 4th-year Hiroki Wakabayashi being its fastest at 1:01:25, but with 3 men under 28 minutes for 10000 m and people like 4th-year Akimu Nomura, 13:33.88 for 5000 m, in reserve it's pretty hard to see AGU faltering. And maybe more than any other school except Teikyo University, coach Hara really brings everything to Hakone. AGU's sum there is always greater than whatever it's done in the other parts of the season.

Komazawa is the most accomplished team over the half marathon distance, with a 10-man average of 1:02:01 led by captain Kotaro Shinohara, the fastest-ever Japanese-born collegiate half marathoner at 1:00:11. Under new head coach Atsushi Fujita Komazawa really focused on the half marathon this season, meaning that a lot of its people don't have 10000 m bests in line with their actual ability. In that way Komazawa's ranking doesn't reflect where it's really at. A lot will depend on how its 2 best non-half marathoners, Keita Sato and Shunsuke Kuwata, do, 3rd-year Sato having missed Izumo and Nationals as he recovered from an injury earlier in the year and 1st-year Kuwata solid on the track but lacking at Nationals.

Excluding the Ivy League Select Team at Izumo, Soka University, Waseda University and Josai University were the next 3 teams at both Izumo and Nationals. 4th-placer Soka is ranked 4th this time too, Josai 8th and Waseda 12th. Soka seems pretty likely to hold that position and Waseda to do a lot better than 12th, making Josai the question mark. 3rd at Hakone in 2024, so far this season it has looked to be down on strength relative to last year's roster, especially with the graduation of uphill Fifth Stage CR breaker Yuito Yamamoto. Top 10 is a safe bet, but how high?

#5-ranked Chuo University has fantastic track credentials, with 10-man averages of 13:42.66 and 28:15.62, but it lacks in half marathon development. That was clear at October's Yosenkai half marathon qualifying race where it was in the bottom half of the qualifiers at 6th. Based on that it'll be trying to hang on to a spot in the top 10 against Daito Bunka University, Chuo Gakuin University, last year's 4th-placer Toyo University and others to earn a trip to Izumo and a return trip to Hakone next season. Toyo's luck depends a lot on whether injury-prone 4th-year Kosuke Ishida is in one piece.

Waseda aside, the next tier of schools will be trying to knock Chuo and others off the podium. Teikyo and Hosei University have a history of outperforming what they look like on paper, with head coaches Takayuki Nakano and Tomoo Tsubota both excelling at peaking for Hakone like AGU's Hara. #15-ranked Nittai University was good at the Yosenkai qualifier, finishing 4th, but both Tokyo Kokusai University and Juntendo University were way below their rankings, TKU just 8th and Juntendo squeezing through by 1 second in 10th.

Ranked only 18th and 19th, Rikkyo University and Senshu University went 1-2 at the Yosenkai. Conditions were hot there, so that might not translate to success at Hakone. But Rikkyo making the top 10 for the first time since 1962 in Komazawa grad Yusuke Takabayashi's first season as head coach would be a big moment, and likewise for 1939 Hakone winner Senshu, which only has 2 top 10 finishes in the last 30 years.

Nihon University, Yamanashi Gakuin University and Kanagawa University make up the back end of the field and will probably spend most of Day Two trying to beat the white sash cutoffs for falling too far behind the leader. The Kanto Region Student Alliance team is made up of top-placing individuals at the Yosenkai from schools that don't qualify as a team. It has a good lineup this year, good enough to be ranked 16th, but most years it doesn't live up to its ranking, something lacking in the team chemistry and motivation that makes the Hakone Ekiden more than just a sequential series of half marathons.

Hakone is always the best road racing of the year, really more the highlight of the 2024 season than the start of the 2025 season. Here's to another stellar race in its 101st edition, whatever happens.

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