Skip to main content

Toyota Going for the Repeat - New Year Ekiden Preview


The New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championship kicks off 2025 early, with streaming starting at 9:00 a.m. local time January 1st and the race going off at 9:15. At 7 legs totaling 100 km it's the peak of the year for the corporate leagues, the reason they have teams and bring in Kenyans.

Last year Toyota led from the Second Stage to the finish, outrunning 2022-2023 winner Honda and 2017-2020 winner Asahi Kasei to take the national title for the first time since 2016. How is Toyota looking this year? On the one hand they've picked up fresh incoming talent like last year's Komazawa University captain Mebuki Suzuki. On the other, some of its key players like Tomoki Ota and Ren Tazawa have been dealing with injury, and at November's Chubu Region qualifying race Toyota lost by a minute to Toyota Boshoku, who broke the Chubu CR.

A lot of Honda's A-list was missing from its lineup at the East Japan Region qualifying race, where it was only 7th out of 10 qualifiers. Big teams don't always put their best people into the regional qualifying races, especially East Japan 4th-placer Fujitsu, so it's probably worth not reading too much into that result. But it wasn't encouraging.

Asahi Kasei won the Kyushu Region qualifier, missing 10000 m national champion Jun Kasai from its lineup but winning thanks to a great comeback run on the anchor stage by former NR holder Akira Aizawa. That said, its margin of victory was only 1 second, with last year's New Year Ekiden 4th-placer Kurosaki Harima turning in a great team performance that saw anchor Sota Fukutani run exactly the same time as Aizawa.

Toyota Boshoku, Fujitsu and Kurosaki Harima all have a shot at breaking into the top 3, but one of the biggest threats to Toyota, Honda and Asahi Kasei is East Japan winner GMO, home of Fukuoka International Marathon winner Yuya Yoshida. Yoshida broke the First Stage CR at the East Japan qualifier and was 40 seconds ahead of 2nd before going on to win Fukuoka in 2:05:16. A lot depends on his recovery since then, but with 3 other GMO runners having won their East Japan stages it's pretty likely GMO will do a lot better than its 8th-place finish last year.

Other regional winners SG Holdings, YKK and Chudenko weren't factors at the 2024 New Year Ekiden, finishing 19th, 23rd, 29th, but at the Hokuriku Region qualifier held as a single race with the Chubu Region YKK ran a 5-minute CR that put them 3rd overall behind Toyota Boshoku and Toyota. They could be interesting. 14th last year and 5th at the East Japan race, Subaru will be getting a lot of attention this year too for the corporate league debut of 3000 m SC NR holder Ryuji Miura.

Live tweeting isn't much of a thing any more, but JRN will be on-site in Maebashi for the race and we'll have some coverage on @JRNLive. See you then.

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

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Chinese Influencer Intrudes on Hakone Ekiden Fifth Stage to Shoot Video of Himself Running with AGU's Wakabayashi

A Chinese influencer ignored restrictions and race officials' directions and ran on the Hakone Ekiden course to shoot video during the race's uphill Fifth Stage on Jan. 2. He later apologized. The influencer, Shen Haoze , posts about running and marathons, and on the Chinese social media site Weibo has nearly 5 million followers. A clip of him running on the closed road course of the Hakone Ekiden's Fifth Stage alongside course record setter Hiroki Wakabayashi of defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University and shooting video went viral on social media. Race officials can be heard warning him to get off the course due to the danger to the competing athletes, but Shen ignored them, setting off a firestorm of criticism from users in both Japan and China. Comments included, "These athletes are putting their whole lives into the race. What the hell does he think he's doing?" and "He has no regard for the danger to them." Shen later posted an apology on...
Post a Comment
Read more

February's National XC Named as Selection Race for 2026 World XC Team

The JAAF has announced that the 2025 National Cross Country Championships on Feb. 22 will act as the selection race for the senior teams for the 2026 World Cross Country Championships to be held Jan. 10 in Tallahassee, U.S.A. for both the senior men's and women's 10 km, up to 8 athletes will be selected, with 6 ultimately running. Team scoring is based upon each team's first 4 finishers. Member of the 10000 m team at September's Tokyo World Championships will be given priority in World XC team selection. The JAAF is planning a separate selection race in November for the U20 teams. Nominations to the 8 km mixed relay will be based on results in the 2 km race at the 2025 National Cross Country Championships, to be held at Fukuoka's Umi no Naka Michi Kaihin Park. source article: https://www.rikujyokyogi.co.jp/archives/158822 translated by Brett Larner
Post a Comment
Read more

The 2025 Hakone Ekiden by the Numbers

It was another record-breaking year at the Hakone Ekiden . All 13 of the course records, the 10 individual stages, the Day One and Day Two courses and the overall course, have been set since 2019, and out of those 6 fell this time, 2 of them broken by multiple athletes or teams. All of them had performances in at least their all-time top 6, and 9 of them in their all-time top 3. First Stage (21.3 km) - all-time #4 Second Stage (23.1 km) - CR, all-time #2, all-time #3, all-time #9 Third Stage (21.4 km) - all-time #4, all-time #5, all-time #7 Fourth Stage (20.9 km) - all-time #2, all-time #7, all-time #8, all-time #9 Fifth Stage (20.8 km uphill) - CR, all-time #3 Sixth Stage (20.8 km downhill) - CR, all-time #5, all-time #9 Seventh Stage (21.3 km) - CR, all-time #4 (x2), all-time #7 Eighth Stage (21.4 km) - all-time #6, all-time #9, all-time #10 Ninth Stage (23.1 km) - all-time #6, all-time #10 Tenth Stage (23.0 km) - all-time #2, all-time #7 Day One (107.5 km) - all-time #2...
2 comments
Read more