Nagano Higashi Girls Lead Start to Finish to Win National High School Ekiden

2022 National High School Ekiden girls' champion Nagano Higashi H.S. was back in force after a 5th-place finish last year, leading start to finish to win this year's national title Sunday in Kyoto. Lead runner Airi Mashiba kicked it off with a 19:30 stage win on the 6.0 km opening leg, something that head coach Fumio Yokouchi said later that he hadn't been expecting. That ended up being Nagano Higashi's only individual stage win in the 5-leg, 21.0975 km race, but the rest of its team ran well enough to hold a lead that was never less than 11 seconds but never more than 21.

Last year's 4th-placer Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. spent most of the race in 2nd, but over the second half of the race Sendai Ikuei H.S., 2nd last year by just 1 second, came from further back to run Kunei down on the anchor stage thanks in big part to a critical stage win on the 4th leg by Tsubomi Tezuka that put anchor Aoi Hosokawa in position to catch Kunei's Mizuki Oda. Nagano Higashi won in 1:07:27, 1 second faster than Kamimura Gakuen H.S. did in winning the 2023 title, with Sendai Ikuei 2nd in 1:07:45 and Kunei Joshi Gakuin 3rd in 1:08:05.

A major rule change this year barred non-Japanese athletes from running anything except one of the two 3.0 km legs, which meant the CR on the longer stages were all out of reach. The Third Stage saw a new CR of 9:14 by Lucy Nduta of 9th-place Aomori Yamada H.S. as a result, with 2nd and 3rd placers Rose Wangui (Sera H.S.) and Margaret Muthoni (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.) also under the old CR of 9:21. Despite Muthoni's efforts, last year's national champ Kamimura Gakuen was only 5th in 1:08:41. 800 m NR holder Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) came up short of the fastest time ever by a Japanese-born runner on the 4.0975 km Second Stage but still managing to take the stage win in 12:47. Higashi Osaka Keiai was 6th in 1:08:42.

36th National High School Girls Ekiden

Kyoto, 22 Dec. 2024

58 teams, 5 legs, 21.0975 km

complete results

Top Individual Stage Results

First Stage (6.0 km) - Airi Mashiba (Nagano Higashi H.S.) - 19:30

Second Stage (4.0975 km) - Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) - 12:47

Third Stage (3.0 km) - Lucy Nduta (Aoyama Yamada H.S.) - 9:14 - CR

Fourth Stage (3.0 km) - Tsubomi Tezuka (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) - 9:10

Fifth Stage (5.0 km) - Momoka Onishi (Ritsumeikan Uji H.S.) - 15:46

Top Team Results

1. Nagano Higashi H.S. - 1:07:27

2. Sendai Ikuei H.S. - 1:07:45

3. Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. - 1:08:05

4. Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. - 1:08:32

5. Kamimura Gakuen H.S. - 1:08:41

6. Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S. - 1:08:42

7. Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S. - 1:08:45

8. Gingawa Gakuin H.S. - 1:09:19

9. Aoyama Yamada H.S. - 1:09:36

10. Saitama Sakae H.S. - 1:10:03

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges. Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...

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."...

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

japan running news

Search This Blog