Skip to main content

Is This Daito Bunka's Year? Morinomiyako Ekiden Preview


University men's ekiden season got started with the Izumo Ekiden two weeks ago and last weekend's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race. This week it's the first national-level university women's ekiden of the season, the Morinomiyako Ekiden in Sendai. Because of Hakone's popularity and Tokyo's massive size the Kanto Region dominates men's running to the point that it's almost impossible for a university from any other part of the country to beat even a single Kanto team at Izumo or next month's National University Men's Ekiden. Not so at Morinomiyako or December's Mt. Fuji University Women's Ekiden.

The Kanto Region still has the biggest share of the field, with 11 of the 26 teams in the field this year based in Kanto. But it doesn't dominate the same way it does for collegiate men. There's almost always a Kanto Region team in the top 3, and it's almost always last year's 2nd-placer Daito Bunka University, but a Kanto team hasn't won the Morinomiyako national title since 2002 when Tsukuba University did it around the time this year's 4th-years were born.

The Kansai Region's Ritsumeikan University broke Kanto's control at the national level with a win in 2003, the first of 11 Morinomiyako wins since then including 5-straight titles from 2011 to 2015. The Tokai Region's Meijo University replaced Ritsumeikan as the dominant force in 2016, winning 7-straight years before Ritsumeikan came to the top again last year with a 2:03:03 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km race, 3:14.3/km pace. Daito Bunka was 6th in the 7 years of Meijo's dynasty, and again behind Ritsumeikan. 1998 and 2000 winner Josai University, coming back up in strength the last few years, was 3rd, knocking Meijo down to 4th, its lowest placing since 2015.

Ritsumeikan returns 4 of the 6 members of last year's winning team. All 4, Sayuki Ota, Yumi Yamamoto, Chiseno Ikeda and Makoto Tsuchiya, ran September's Kansai Region qualifying race with the addition of 4th-years Yu Muramatsu and Reina Sotoma, but over the 2nd half of the race they were run down by Osaka Gakuin University and Kansai University, OGU winning in 2:01:32 for the 36.2 km race, 3:21.4/km pace, with Kansai 2:02:56 for 2nd and Ritsumeikan only 3rd in 2:03:07.


In contrast, 2024 Morinomiyako runner-up Daito Bunka killed it at the Kanto Region qualifying race, setting a CR 1:50:05 for 34.4 km, 3:12.0/km pace, with only 3 members of last year's team, Mana Aiba, Sarah Wanjiru, and Akie Hirao. None of the other members of last year's team have graduated, and 2 of the remaining spots on its Kanto team were filled by 1st-years who broke their stage's CR, Yuna Naruse with a 13:26 for the 4.3 km 1st leg and Rinon Akitake with a 23:37 for the 7.3 km 5th leg. Wanjiru has been so dominant at DBU that it's easy to forget she's only a 3rd-year, but she crushed the CR at Kanto too with a 26:43 for the 8.6 km 3rd leg.

Josai also broke the CR at Kanto in 1:51:21 for 2nd, with 4 of its 6 runners breaking the CR on their stages. But although it didn't lose anyone from last year's team to graduation it looked to be a little short of a full team that could compete with DBU. Already seeded for Morinomiyako, Meijo sat out the Tokai Region qualifying race, making it a little harder to read. Only anchor Nanase Tanimoto graduated, and that's a big loss, and 1st-year Mei Hosomi made a splash with a 2nd-place finish behind Wanjiru in the 10000 m at June's National University Track and Field Championships, so there's reason to be optimistic for a return.

But based on how things look right now, with depth at quality DBU looks to be in the best position it's ever been in to take its first national title. Peaking is the big question. Did Ritsumeikan coast through the Kansai Region race with an eye to being at full strength a month later at Morinomiyako, and can DBU keep up the momentum? NTV has the live broadcast starting at 11:45 Sunday local time, with official streaming on TVer and Hulu.

Morinomiyako Ekiden Entry List

43rd National University Women's Ekiden
Sendai, Miyagi, 26 Oct. 2025
26 teams, 6 stages, 38.0 km

1. Ritsumeikan University (Kansai Region)
2. Daito Bunka University (Kanto Region)
3. Josai University (Kanto Region)
4. Meijo University (Tokai Region)
5. Tohoku Fukushi University (Tohoku Region)
6. Osaka Gakuin University (Kansai Region)
7. Takushoku University (Kanto Region)
8. Tsukuba University (Kanto Region)
9. Hokkaido University (Hokkaido Region)
10. Sendai University (Tohoku Region)
11. Teikyo Kagaku University (Kanto Region)
12. Tamagawa University (Kanto Region)
13. Chuo University (Kanto Region)
14. Juntendo University (Kanto Region)
15. Nittai University (Kanto Region)
16. Surugadai University (Kanto Region)
17. Niigata Iryo Fukushi University (Hokushinetsu Region)
18. Chukyo Gakuin University (Tokai Region)
19. Kansai University (Kansai Region)
20. Kansai Gaikokugo University (Kansai Region)
21. Kantaiheiyo University (Chugoku/Shikoku Region)
22. Fukuoka University (Kyushu Region)
23. Toyo University (Kanto Region)
24. Kyoto Sangyo University (Kansai Region)
25. Osaka Geijutsu University (Kansai Region)
26. Tohoku Region Select Team (Tohoku Region)

© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

 
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Last year I thought it was going to be DBU's year. Then when Ritsumeikan cleaned up both this and the Mt Fuji Ekiden in convincing fashion I thought a new dynasty might be on the cards. However, after watching their performance in the Kansai Region qualifying race I'm less certain. On form I'd be leaning towards DBU. Sarah Wanjiru is in peak form. It should be an exciting race. It's very difficult to get a read on Meijo but I think we will know early on how their day will progress based on how Nanaka Yonezawa runs the 1st stage, if she is tasked with that role. By all accounts she seems to be in much better form. Looking forward to a very competitive race. I think it should be closer affair than the Princess Ekiden result last week.
October 25, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Hayashi Morozumi Steps Down as Tokai Head Coach

Hayashi Morozumi , 59, has stepped down as head coach at Tokai University following its 12th-place finish at this year's 102nd Hakone Ekiden. Morozumi will serve in an executive advisory role to Noriaki Nishide , 51, who moves up from the Tokai coaching staff to take on head coach duties. Morozumi came to at his alma mater Tokai in 2011 after serving at head coach at Nagano's Saku Chosei H.S. , where the team won the 2008 National High School Ekiden anchored by future marathon NR holder Suguru Osako . In 2019 Morozumi led Tokai to its first-ever Hakone title, making him the only coach to win both the biggest high school and college titles in his career. When Morozumi became head coach at Saku Chosei in 1995 he personally drove a bulldozer to build a cross-country loop at the school, combining his innovative coaching theory with deep passion to build the Saku Chosei program from zero to national championships in just 13 years. Along with Osako, now 34, some of his key proteges ...
Post a Comment
Read more

JAAF Announces Marathon Teams for Nagoya Asian Games

On Mar. 25 the JAAF announced Japan's marathon team lineups for this fall's Nagoya Asian Games. Yuya Yoshida (GMO) and Ichitaka Yamashita (Mitsubishi Juko) make up the men's team, with Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) and Mikuni Yada (Edion) representing Japan in the women's marathon. Each country can field up to 2 men and 2 women per marathon team at the Asian Games. The top-ranked male and female athletes in the 2025-26 MGC Series rankings were given first priority, with the second slots going to people with high-level performances in the 2025-26 MGC Series. Yoshida ran 2:05:16 to win the 2024 Fukuoka International Marathon, and at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon ran an excellent 2:06:59 to take the top Japanese spot in the race and in the MGC rankings. After having run the Tokyo World Championships marathon last fall this will be his second-straight marathon national team in a major international championships. Yamashita ran 2:06:18 at February's Osak...
Post a Comment
Read more

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."...
81 comments
Read more