Skip to main content

New Okukuma Women's Ekiden to be Held in March, 2026

Representatives from the towns of Taragi, Yunomae, Asagiri and Mizukami met with the Kumamoto Track and Field Association last week to finalize plans for a new Okukuma Women's Ekiden to be held for the first time on Mar. 15 next year. The new event will have two divisions, one for high school teams and one for collegiate and corporate league teams, with both divisions racing 16 km in 5 legs. Applications will be open from Dec. 1 through Feb. 6 next year.

The area launched the Okukuma Ekiden for men in 2022, and since then participating teams have called for a women's event to be added. The women's race will be held in March because at that point in the season there are typically a lot of college and corporate league teams doing training camps nearby in Miyazaki, which organizers think will make it easier to assemble a good field.

The course is planned to start in front of Asagiri Station and follow Route 219 to a turnaround point in Mizukami before finishing in front of Yunomae Station. Individual stages will be relatively short because the event will come at a point in the season where people are transitioning from road running to the track. Organizers hope for a field of 35 teams in the high school division and 15 in the university and corporate league division.

Overseeing the official inauguration of the race organizing committee at Asagiri Town Hall, Yumae mayor and committee chair Kazuto Hase commented, "We want this to be a race that will contribute to raising the level of our nation's female distance runners and help them grow into internationally competitive athletes."

source article:
translated by Brett Larner

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...
1 comment
Read more

Morinomiyako Ekiden Preview

The university men's ekiden circuit is 100% dominated by schools from the Tokyo-area Kanto Region, but for women it's more geographically diverse, the last two big dynasty schools being the Tokai Region's Meijo University and the Kansai Region's Ritsumeikan University with Kanto's Daito Bunka University a perpetual close 2nd at both of the main races, Sunday's Morinomiyako Ekiden and December's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden . Last year Kanto's Josai University scored upset wins at both Morinomiyako and Mt. Fuji , to make it a rare Kanto sweep. At Morinomiyako DBU was 2nd yet again with Meijo 3rd and Tohoku region local Tohoku Fukushi University a surprise 4th to hold 2024 winner and top Kansai team Ritsumeikan back to 5th. At Mt. Fuji Tohoku Fukushi almost pulled off a shock win on the anchor stage before Josai came back on the final climb, bumping DBU down to 3rd and Meijo to 4th, with Ritsumeikan 5th there too. Fresh names at the top of the list a...
1 comment
Read more