Osaka is the heavyweight of the four races, with 28 of the sub-2:10s and four of the five fastest times including both 2:05 performances, Ryota Kondo’s 2:05:39 debut for 2nd and Kyohei Hosoya’s 2:05:58 PB. Tokyo was next with eleven sub-2:10 performances led by Tsubasa Ichiyama in a 2:06:00 PB, Beppu-Oita next with seven topped by a 2:06:07 debut by Hiroki Wakabayashi, and Nobeoka producing a 2:09:43 win from Jin Yuasa. It’s pretty easy to see the hierarchy of the races there and how they tend to be set up, although Osaka’s greater depth is more a product of Tokyo catering to NR attempts and Osaka to the tier below that. The very best go to Tokyo to shoot for the next level and mostly fall short, while those going for a safer bet run Osaka.
42 of the 47 sub-2:10 performances were by runners from the corporate leagues, with the other five coming from two of the top three teams at this year’s Hakone Ekiden, winner Aoyama Gakuin University and 3rd-place Koku Gakuin University. Across all teams, New Year Ekiden 15th-placer JR Higashi Nihon produced the most runners under 2:10, four, if not the very fastest as all were at the 2:08-09 level.
Mitsubishi Juko, Aoyama Gakuin University, Fujitsu, Toyota and JFE Steel all had three people apiece, Mitsubishi Juko the class of the list with Kondo’s 2:05:39, Hiroto Inoue in 2:06:14, and Toshiki Sadakata 2:07:34. No coincidence that they’re one of the few teams to describe themselves as a marathon team instead of a track team or ekiden team. Aoyama Gakuin University was next with Asahi Kuroda debuting in 2:06:05, Wakabayashi’s 2:06:07, and Kosei Shiraishi 2:08:24. Fujitsu was next-best at this tier with NR holder Kengo Suzuki’s 2:06:18 comeback, a 2:06:23 from Yuhei Urano, and a 2:09:55 comeback from Tokyo Olympics marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura. New Year Ekiden 3rd-place Toyota was next, followed a bit surprisingly by the minor JFE Steel team, only 20th at the New Year Ekiden.
Six other teams had two people apiece under 2:10, including New Year Ekiden winner Asahi Kasei and runner-up Honda, non-qualifier Press Kogyo, and Koku Gakuin University. Both Asahi Kasei and Honda have a good number of sub-2:10 men on their roster, so it might be a case of timing with all the focus having gone into the ekiden win. Although that said, Asahi Kasei has a recent history of not being able to produce marathoners at the level you'd expect given the quality of people they recruit and their massive budget. It's not clear why.
16 other teams put one runner under 2:10, with New Year Ekiden 4th-placer GMO a notable absence. Like Asahi Kasei, GMO has one of the biggest budgets in the corporate leagues. To be fair, though, their best runner, Yuya Yoshida, won the Fukuoka International Marathon in 2:05:16 in December and is a lock for the Tokyo World Championships team. Likewise for Honda, who will have JMC series champ and Paris Olympics marathon trials winner Naoki Koyama on the Tokyo team.
Japanese men’s marathoning is so deep because its collegiate system focuses on the half marathon distances run at the Hakone Ekiden. Looking at the 47 sub-2:10s in the last month sorted by university the athletes graduated from, Hakone runner-up Komazawa University dominates the list with six alumni led by Shohei Otsuka in 2:06:38. Koku Gakuin is next with five, including two current students, led by Urano’s 2:06:23. When you consider that Koku Gakuin head coach Yasuhiro Maeda went to Komazawa where he was coached by Hiroaki Oyagi like all six Komazawa alum on the list, it’s pretty easy to see Oyagi’s influence across the sport, both in training approach and focus on post-college longevity.
Reliably squeezing onto Hakone’s ten-deep podium almost every time, 10th-place Teikyo University produced four of the sub-2:10 people led by Shoma Hosoya in 2:07:48, a testament to the sound principles of head coach Takayuki Nakano’s approach. Aoyama Gakuin, Juntendo University, Toyo University and Senshu University each had three people under 2:10. In Aoyama Gakuin’s case all are current students, making it notable that not a single alumnus of the Hakone Ekiden champ is on the list. Coach Susumu Hara is very much about making collegiate running part of the entertainment industry, and his attitude and its contrast to Oyagi's shows in the number of Aoyama Gakuin runners like Wakabayashi who say they're not going to continue after graduating. But again, to be fair Fukuoka winner Yoshida is also an Aoyama Gakuin grad, so they will have somebody on the Tokyo Worlds team.
Chuo Gakuin University, Nittai University, Kanagawa University, Hosei University and Chuo University all have two alum each on the list, Chuo Gakuin the most impressive between Hosoya’s 2:05:58 and Ichiyama’s 2:06:00. Nine other universities had a single graduate on the list, and it’s interesting that out of those only three attended schools that made Hakone this year, Josai University, Yamanashi Gakuin University and Waseda University. Naoki Koyama’s alma mater Tokyo Nogyo University had no other alumni on the list. The iconoclast award goes to Keijiro Mogi from the Asahi Kasei team, the only runner on the list of 47 to go straight from high school to the corporate leagues. That just goes to show how important the collegiate focus in Japan is to its marathon success.
There’s not really much correlation to be drawn between high school attended and sub-2:10 performance, with only two schools, Miyagi’s Tohoku H.S. and Aichi’s Aichi H.S., having two people on the list. But it is pretty interesting that out of the current high school ekiden powerhouse schools, say the top ten at December’s National High School Ekiden, only one, 9th-place Rakunan H.S. in Kyoto, had even a single graduate run sub-2:10. In Rakunan’s case that was Wakabayashi from Aoyama Gakuin.
Runners from 29 of Japan’s 47 prefectures made the sub-2:10 list, Saitama leading the way with five people fronted by Ichiyama’s 2:06:00 and Yugo Kashiwa’s 2:06:28. Saitama, Tokyo's northwestern suburbs and the wilds beyond, was also 5th at January’s National Men’s Ekiden, but other than that there wasn’t much correlation between ekiden placing and marathon results. Aichi had four people including Aichi H.S. grads Kento Kikutani and Mizuki Higashi, with the Kyushu region’s Nagasaki and Kagoshima producing three people apiece. Tochigi, Okayama, Yamagata, Tottori, Tokyo, Mie and Kanagawa each had two.
Grouping those by region, it goes without saying that the Tokyo-centric Higashi Nihon region had the largest representation at 18 of the 47, but with the Chubu region having ten runners and Kyushu nine it’s clear when you account for population that they’re both key ground for producing talent, especially Kyushu. The Chugoku region had six people on the list, and the tiny Hokuriku region three. The biggest surprise was that the Kansai region, home to Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, had only one runner under 2:10, Kyoto’s Kento Nishi in 2:09:09.
As mentioned, Honda's Naoki Koyama is guaranteed a place on the Tokyo World Championships team for winning the current JMC Series, and GMO's Yuya Yoshida is pretty close to 100% on the team for his 2:05:16 win in Fukuoka. The last spot is going to be a decision between Ryota Kondo's 2:05:39 debut for 2nd in Osaka, and Tsubasa Ichiyama's 2:06:00 for 10th in Tokyo. In Kondo's favor, he was 21 seconds faster and almost won. Working against him, it was snowing, which is radically different from September weather in Tokyo, and it was his debut, something the JAAF explicitly tries to avoid in national team selection.
In Ichiyama's favor, it was a breakthrough off a proven record at the 2:07-08 level, he was only seconds from 5th in a much more competitive field than Osaka, and the weather was sunny and near 20˚, much closer to what Worlds will be like in September. Counting against him, he was only 10th, and he didn't run the kind of race the JAAF likes, i.e. instead of front-running no matter what like the JAAF prefers he ignored what was obviously too fast a pace in the first two groups in Tokyo, bided his time, and then moved up fast late in the race. It'll almost definitely go to Kondo, but the final decision won't be made public until near the end of the month.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Comments
Following up on that, despite different philosophies among college universities, would we be super surprised if in LA 2028 3 among K.Sato, Shinohara, Kuroda and Ota will be representing Japan?
On the selection for world championship I think Japan is in a unique position compared to the rest of the world: fantastic depth but the top runners aren't yet fast enough to compete for medals.
That creates a tricky situation because while most other nations don't have this depth, they usually have 3-4 clear top runners (in their country) so they aren't likely to make a "mistake" in picking who goes to WC/Olympics.
Japan's depth is great and I feel it will pay off in the long-term.
Personally though, I'm not convinced the selection process currently in place is the best suited for Olympics/WC or one shot races.
Race skills, adaptability to different conditions, change of pace, I feel identifying a guy who has those is more important than looking strictly at the points/best time in a certain timeframe.
I think the way Akasaki ran in Paris is exactly the kind of racer you look for in the process and that is more valuable than whatever accumulated points one has. (this can get instead you a Kazuya Nishiyama at world championships, not taking anything away from him but he was never ready/showed he could compete with the best in an international race)