Skip to main content

Akimu Nomura Named Hakone Ekiden MVP After Sixth Stage CR

 

At the closing ceremony of the 101st Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 3 at the Yomiuri Newspaper building in Otemachi, Tokyo, Akimu Nomura was named MVP of this year's race for his role in helping Aoyama Gakuin University score it 2nd-straight course record win. Nomura became the first runner ever to break 57 minutes on the 20.8 km downhill Sixth Stage, setting a new CR of 56:47, and was also awarded the Shizo Kanakuri award for exceptional performance and potential.

The MVP award is new this year and goes to the outstanding member of the winning team, while the Kanakuri award has been in place since the 80th edition in 2004. The winners of both awards were determined by the KGRR selection committee led by Yasushi Ueda.

Nomura told media, "To be honest I didn't think they'd give me both. I would have been happy with either, so I'm really, really happy. When the team started training in April after the 100th last year I said I was going to go for 56 minutes, but it seemed like a fantasy when I said it. From around 15 to 18 km I started thinking, 'There's still 6 km left, 5 km left....' It really felt long. I got blisters on the bottom of my left and it really hurt."

Of his goals post-graduation Nomura said, "I'm going to continue as a corporate league runner, and I'm going to mainly focus on the 5000 m. I want to develop enough to make the podium at the National Championships."

source article:


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Takeshi Soh Reflects on 54 Years in the Sport on His Retirement as Asahi Kasei Head Coach

After 54 years at the Asahi Kasei corporate team, first as athlete and then as coach, Takeshi Soh will retire at the end of this month. Together with his twin brother Shigeru Soh they formed a duo who were icons of the Japanese marathoning world and went all the way to the Olympics. After retiring from competition Takeshi devoted himself to coaching young athletes and came to play a primary role in the leadership of Japanese long distance. His list of achievements is long, and so is the list of those he influenced and inspired. His twin Shigeru was chosen for three Olympic teams in the marathon, Montreal in 1976, Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984. Takeshi was named to the Moscow and Los Angeles teams, placing 4th in L.A. to confirm his position as one of the greatest names in the sport in that era. After becoming a coach the twins helped lead Hiromi Taniguchi to gold at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships, Koichi Morishita to silver a year later at the Barcelona Olympics, and o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Evaluating the Japan Marathon Championship Series IV Awards

  The JAAF held the award ceremony for its Japan Marathon Championship Series IV last night in Tokyo, the whole thing streamed live on Youtube. The two-year series, in this case running from April, 2023 to March, 2025, scores marathoners on time and place in domestic races and high-level international races, with athletes' two best performances combining to give them their series rankings. Series winners score guaranteed places on the 2025 Tokyo World Championships team , with the top 8 women and men earning prize money: 1st: ¥6,000,000 (~$40,000 USD) 2nd: ¥3,000,000 (~$20,000) 3rd: ¥1,000,000 (~$6,700) 4th: ¥800,000 (~$5,300) 5th: ¥700,000 (~$4,700) 6th: ¥500,000 (~$3,300) 7th: ¥300,000 (~$2,000) 8th: ¥200,000 (~$1,300) Points for time are scored according to World Athletics scoring tables, with placing points based on races' designated level. Given the JAAF's financial interests in the big domestic races and the income stream from their TV broadcasts, the scoring system ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...
1 comment
Read more