The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher, hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One.
If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd, and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd. There's even a 2-hour highlights show starting at 9:00 p.m. on the 3rd if you're in a time zone that makes the live broadcast tough to watch.
We've already published a detailed look at the 16-runner entry lists for all 20 schools and the Select Team made up of top individual finishers at October's Yosenkai qualifying race whose teams didn't make the cut. With the publication of the preliminary start lists yesterday we're going to take a closer look at what might happen on Day One, the overall contenders for the win, and the action down around the cutoff for top 10.
There are really 4 teams that could win it, with one other that could KO the field on Day One and another dark house that could at least get into the top 3. The 4 potential winners are this season's Izumo Ekiden winner Koku Gakuin University, National University Ekiden 2nd-placer Chuo University, National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University, and 2025 Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University.
Koku Gakuin has the best 10-man half marathon average in Hakone history, 1:01:20, with four runners with sub-61 PBs, another 5 in 61-minute territory, and 10th man Kuranosuke Yoshida having a 1:02:01 best. Out of the sub-61 guys, Rui Aoki has the best 5000 m PB at 13:30.42 and Hiromichi Nonaka the best 10000 m at 27:36.64. Ranked 4th at Izumo, KGU came from behind to win for the 2nd year in a row, but with a #1 ranking at Nationals it was only 4th. Since then it's had a lot of breakthrough performances including Aoki's 1:00:45 half marathon PB in a CR win at the Ageo City Half Marathon and Nonaka's school record 27:36.64 at Hachioji.
KGU's fastest half marathoner Ryuto Uehara, 1:00:30, is slated to run the super competitive Second Stage and 1:00:51 man Hikaru Tsujihara the Fourth Stage. Aoki and Nonaka are both on the alternates list, and if they are both swapped in on Day One then KGU has the material to end the first day in the top position. There's no doubt this is a more well-rounded team than last year when it was heavily dependent on its best 2 runners at the time. At Hakone 2025 KGU was ranked #1 overall but finished 3rd almost 10 minutes behind winner Aoyama Gakuin. If everyone hits it perfectly this could be the year KGU finally scores the Hakone title for the first time. But it's never that easy.
Chuo has the best 5000 m and 10000 m averages in the field, 13:33.10 and 27:55.98, Shunsuke Yoshii leading them with a 13:22.01 for 5000 m and Kaisei Okada dropping a school record 27:37.06 in Hachioji in November. It has an incredible 6 runners with 10000 m bests under 28 minutes. Has any NCAA team ever matched that? Chuo is a little short on half marathon credentials, with only Yuta Yoshinaka having broken 61 minutes and only another 5 runners under 62, which doesn't help given Hakone's average stage length of 21.71 km.
But Chuo's main problem is stability. Ranked #1 at Izumo this year, it finished 10th. Ranked #2 at Nationals, it lived up to that with a 2nd-place finish. Which Chuo will show up to Hakone? Last year Chuo was ranked 5th and matched that like at Nationals this year, so there's reason to think it could be the good version on the starting line. Chuo currently has 27-minute men Itta Tameike and Hayate Honma on the Second and Third Stages and 1:01:41 half marathoner Daichi Shibata on the legendary uphill Fifth Stage, but is holding Yoshii, Yoshinaka, Okada and Daichi Fujita, 27:40.50 for 10000 m, on its reserve list. With a good uphill run Chuo will be almost unbeatable on Day One, but the big question is whether it can hang on over Day Two given its weaker distance credentials. An overall win would be its first since 1996.
Missing star 4th-year Keita Sato, 13:09.45 for 5000 m and 27:28.50 for 10000 m, Komazawa was 5th at Izumo off a #6 ranking. With Sato at about 70% fitness at Nationals it won a record-breaking 17th national title off a #3 ranking, with all 8 runners making the top 5 on their stage, 6 of them in the top 3, and Aoi Ito setting a new CR on the Fifth Stage. Komazawa was ranked #3 at Hakone last year and finished 2nd, actually outrunning AGU over Day Two to set a 5:20:50 CR for the 109.6 km Day Two course.
What to make of Komazawa's approach this time? With 5 of its 6 best runners, Sato, uphill specialist Takuma Yamakawa, and sub-61 half marathoners Yudai Kiyama, Shunsuke Kuwata and Haru Taninaka on the reserve list Komazawa is keeping its cards close to its chest. Looking at the preliminary entry list it seems likely that Kiyama and Kuwata will go on the first 2 stages, Yamakawa on Fifth again, and somebody else on Third. That's probably not enough to give them the lead on Day One against Chuo and others.
If Sato were at 100% you'd expect him to be on Second or Third, but last year he only had 6 weeks of training and was put on the Seventh Stage on Day Two, where he broke the CR by 57 seconds and changed the flow of the race. Given that, expect Komazawa to go big on Day Two. Ito is on the downhill Sixth Stage, and the only places looking ripe for a race morning swap are the Eighth and Tenth Stages. Even at the same level of fitness at last year Sato could make up 2 minutes on either of them. The prospect of him pulling off a rare anchor stage reversal for the win would be absolutely legendary.
Which brings us to the defending champs, Aoyama Gakuin. Ranked 2nd last year, AGU broke the overall Hakone CR to score its 8th win in the last 11 years. Say what you will about head coach Susumu Hara's media whore tendencies, but he puts everything on Hakone and knows how to bring a winning team to the starting line. This year's team is better over 5000 m, 10000 m and the half marathon than last year's lineup, and it says a lot about how much the level has jumped this year across the board that AGU is only ranked 4th.
Popular opinion has it that AGU is hurt this year by the graduation of last year's uphill and downhill stage record breakers Hiroki Wakabayashi and Akimu Nomura, but Hara really knows how to fill those specialist roles. If there's one weakness you could point out it's that AGU is very heavily dependent on collegiate marathon record holder Asahi Kuroda, whose PBs of 13:29.56, 27:37.62 and 1:01:39 prop up the team averages. AGU was ranked #3 at Izumo and finished 7th, then took 3rd at Nationals off a #5 ranking thanks primarily to a stellar 49:31 CR on the 17.6 km Seventh Stage, equivalent to 45:16 for 10 miles.
Since then AGU has had a ton of half marathon PBs and brought its count of sub-28 runners up to 5, so it has the usual momentum for the win. Both Kuroda and 27:51.51 are on the alternate list, but it's pretty much unthinkable that Kuroda would be swapped in on race morning anywhere other than the Second Stage. The bigger question is who is going to run the mountain stages, where 1st-years Yuma Matsuda and Koki Ishikawa, both sub-14 for 5000 m but no marks for 10000 m or half marathon, are currently entered.
Maybe the most interesting placement is AGU's top 5000 m runner, Sota Orita, 13:28.78 for 5000 m in high school and fresh off 27:43.92 and 1:02:51 PBs this fall, on anchor. That would suggest coach Hara is anticipating Komazawa putting heavier weight on Day Two. Given past history, AGU is another major contender for the Day One win, and it's hard not to see them as the favorite for the overall title again.
Ranked #9 overall, Waseda University is the other player in the race for the Day One title. 2nd at Izumo off a #7 ranking, 5th at Nationals while ranked #13, and 4th at Hakone 2025 off a #12 ranking, head coach Katsuhiko Hanada is another one who knows how to bring A-game to the big races. It doesn't have the depth to compete for the win over all 10 of Hakone's legs, but for sure it has the people to take Day One. A big part of that is last year's uphill Fifth Stage runner-up Shinsaku Kudo, who followed that run with a 1:00:06 at the Marugame Half and is slated to run Fifth again.
The biggest red flag is Second Stage runner Tomonori Yamaguchi, 13:16.56, 27:52.37 and 1:01:16. He has shown an inability to control himself in ekidens up to now and has turned away from longer distances over the last 2 years to focus more on 1500 m and 5000 m. If he shows some maturity and holds it together then Waseda could beat Chuo, AGU and KGU over Day One. If not, it'll be down to Kudo to make up lost ground on the mountain.
Teikyo University is the dark horse this year, a reliable program that almost always edges into the top 10 but has never done better than 4th. This year it has its best-ever lineup, ranked #5 overall but #3 on 10-man half marathon average at 1:01:55 behind only KGU and Komazawa. 4th-year Teruki Shimada ran 1:00:56 at Marugame and then won a 3-way sprint finish to win June's Launceston Half Marathon in Australia in a 1:01:12 CR. He's currently listed as an alternate, but you can expect to see him swapped in to run the First Stage again this year. Top 3 is realistic, but it would take setbacks in the big 4 teams for Teikyo to take its first-ever overall win. Stranger things have happened, though.
Top 10 at Hakone is a big deal as it earns teams a guaranteed spot at the next year's Hakone and an invitation to Izumo, with 11th and lower sent back to the Yosenkai to try to qualify again. NTV focuses heavily on the race for 10th over Day Two, and a lot of the time it's more exciting than what's happening up front. Along with the 6 teams above, Soka University, Nihon University and Toyo University all look pretty safe to make the grade. But 10th is really up in the air. This season's Yosenkai winner Chuo Gakuin University, Daito Bunka University, Juntendo University, Tokai University, Josai University and maybe Kanagawa University all have a shot, with CGU and Juntendo having good momentum this season but Josai having fallen on harder times since taking 6th at Hakone last year.
The Kanto Region Student Alliance select team is also quality this year and could place top 10, even though it doesn't count in scoring. Rikkyo University, Yamanashi Gakuin University, Tokyo Kokusai University, Nittai University and Tokyo Nogyo University round out the field and are pretty much in it for the prestige of making the field. They'll likely spend Day Two trying to stay ahead of the white sash cutoffs when teams have to start with a tasuki on a gun start if their incoming runners fall too far behind the leaders. Short of a DNF or a DQ it's the worst thing that can happen to a team at Hakone, and NTV plays it up for full effect when it does.
And with that, we'll see you January 2nd for what's sure to be a history-making edition of the world's greatest road race. Live tweeting is much of a thing anymore, but to whatever extent we do, it'll be on @JRNLive and @JRNHeadlines. See you then.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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