Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden Preview - Collegiate Women's National Championship

The last big race of the year is Monday's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden, the season-ending national championship race for university women. Between Mt. Fuji and October's Morinomiyako Ekiden, up to this season Meijo University was undefeated in 13-straight championship ekiden races, with 7-straight wins at Morinomiyako and 6 at Mt. Fuji. But nothing lasts forever, and at this year's Morinomiyako the last big dynasty school before Meijo, Ritsumeikan University, winner at Morinomiyako from 2011 to 2015 and at Mt. Fuji from 2013 to 2017, outran a flailing Meijo squad to take the win for the first time in 9 years. Its runners took stage wins on 3 of the 6 legs, Yumi Yamamoto breaking the Second Stage CR, Tomo Muramatsu the Third Stage CR, and anchor Makoto Tsuchiya outrunning Meijo captain Nanase Tanimoto for the win.

Meijo's big names, especially Tanimoto and Nanaka Yonezawa, have been off their best most of this season, and it showed when they were only 4th at Morinomiyako. Mt. Fuji is a more technical course with a big uphill finish and demands a wider range of skills than Morinomiyako, but there hasn't been much to show that Meijo has turned it around in time to have a shot at beating Ritsumeikan this time.

But to be fair Ritsumeikan was only 4th at Mt. Fuji last year after a 3rd-place finish at Morinomiyako, so it's not like they have it in the bag. Daito Bunka University has been 2nd at Mt. Fuji 4 times in the last 6 years and 2nd at Morinomiyako 10 times in the last 12 years, and one of these days it's going to make the jump. Daito Bunka runners took the other three stage wins at Morinomiyako including an opening leg CR by Mariya Noda, and with star runner Sarah Wanjiru stronger than ever with a new collegiate 5000 m record of 15:00.86 earlier this month, this could be its year.

Josai University beat Meijo at Morinomiyako too, and it's been coming up over the last few years, going from a steady 6th-7th there to 4th in 2023 and 3rd this year. On the current hilly version of the Mt. Fuji race it has yet to do better than 5th, but chances look good that it'll go at least 4th this time around. Last year's Mt. Fuji 2nd-placer Nittai University was a dismal 9th at Morinomiyako, and based on that a top 5 finish would be stellar.

7th at Morinomiyako and at last year's Mt. Fuji, Takushoku University will field collegiate 10000 m record holder Seira Fuwa for her last college ekiden. Fuwa rewrote the university women's ekiden book as a 1st-year 3 years ago, but with too many long races in too short a time at too young an age she's spent most of the time since then injured. Back to racing regularly for her last season, Fuwa has been about 3 minutes slower for 10 km and 10000 m than she was pre-injury, typically in the 33-minute range at best. It's not likely she'll set things on fire, but as the last time we'll see this big talent here it's a race of special significance.

Fuji TV is broadcasting the race live starting at 9:55 local time Monday, with streaming on TVer. Live tweeting isn't much of a thing any more, but we'll have some coverage on @JRNLive. The complete field for Monday's race, with bib numbers and region:

1. Ritsumeikan University (Kansai)

2. Daito Bunka University (Kanto)

3. Josai University (Kanto)

4. Meijo University (Tokai)

5. Tohoku Fukushi University (Tohoku)

6. Osaka Gakuin University (Kansai)

7. Takushoku University (Kanto)

8. Tsukuba University (Kanto)

9. Nittai University (Kanto)

10. Chuo University (Kanto)

11. Juntendo University (Kanto)

12. Teikyo Kagaku University (Kanto)

13. Toyo University (Kanto)

14. Tamagawa University (Kanto)

15. Kansai Gaikokugo University (Kansai)

16. Hyogo University (Kansai)

17. Asia University (Kanto)

18. Kyoto Sangyo University (Kansai)

19. Osaka Geijutsu University (Kansai)

20. Kansai University (Kansai)

21. Chukyo Gakuin University (Tokai)

22. Tokyo Nogyo University (Kanto)

23. National Select Team

24. Shizuoka Select Team

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