Skip to main content

70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden


The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube.


There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km pace over the entire course. Along with Takeuchi and Shoji, Ryu Moriya was the only other runner to win 2 stages, taking the 10th and 18th legs on the first 2 days.


ND Software's Boniface Mulwa didn't run, but other Kenyans who've found local homes did. Peter Kamau, Luka Musembi and Benjamin Ngandu all ran twice each, with Kamau winning the 13th leg on Day 2 and Ngandu taking the 23rd leg on Day 3. There was even a stray Brit, Youtuber Jake Barraclough who JRN set up with his current training situation with ND Software. The sport went to a new level globally over the last 2 weekends, but it's reassuring to see that there's still a place for this kind of community event bringing together local students, amateurs, pros and internationals.

70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden

Yamagata, 27-29 April, 2026
11 teams, 29 stages, 306.9 km

Team Results
1. Yamagata - 16:06:51
2. Nanyo Higashi Okitama - 16:13:09
3. Tendo Higashi Murayama - 16:27:46
4. Sakata Akumi - 16:32:26
5. Higashi Murayama - 16:40:45
6. Shinjo Mogami - 16:46:18
7. Nagai Nishi Okitama - 16:50:38
8. Sagae Nishi Murayama - 16:59:28
9. Kaminoyama - 17:03:16
10. Yonezawa - 17:42:33
-----
DNF - Tsuruoka Tagawa

Top Individual Stage Results
1st Stage (17.1 km) - Daisuke Shimojo (Nanyo) - 51:08 - CR
2nd Stage (10.4 km) - Koichi Shoji (Yamagata) - 30:07 - CR
3rd Stage (10.9 km) - Shun Osawa (Yamagata) - 33:25
4th Stage (7.4 km) - Naoya Sugawara (Yamagata) - 22:46
5th Stage (6.2 km) - Kosei Miura (Yamagata) - 19:13
6th Stage (9.2 km ) - Shu Omi (Yamagata) - 28:17
7th Stage (6.8 km) - Hiroshi Mitsutake (Nanyo) - 20:32
8th Stage (20.2 km) - Jake Barraclough (Nanyo) - 1:03:32
9th Stage (9.6 km) - Ichiru Furukawa (Shinjo) - 29:52
10th Stage (5.9 km) - Ryu Moriya (Tendo) - 18:07 - CR
11th Stage (10.0 km) - Yusuke Tanabe (Shinjo) - 29:59 - CR
----- Day 2 -----
12th Stage (9.3 km) - Sora Sato (Tendo) - 28:11
13th Stage (13.9 km) - Peter Kamau (Sagae) - 42:30
14th Stage (18.1 km) - Ryoma Takeuchi (Kita Murayama) - 54:36
15th Stage (6.1 km) - Keigo Takeda (Nagai) - 19:21
16th Stage (8.5 km) - Masato Arao (Sakata) - 25:17
17th Stage (11.3 km) - Mahiro Yamaguchi (Nanyo) - 35:32
18th Stage (7.2 km) - Ryu Moriya (Tendo) - 23:45
19th Stage (11.3 km) - Motoshi Suzuki (Yamagata) - 37:27
20th Stage (16.1 km) - Fumiya Horiuchi (Nagai) - 52:49
21st Stage (11.6 km) - Gakuto Sato (Yamagata) - 38:17
----- Day 3 -----
22nd Stage (13.0 km) - Yuta Shimatsu (Nanyo) - 38:35 - CR
23rd Stage (13.4 km) - Benjamin Ngandu (Yonezawa) - 40:23
24th Stage (3.3 km) - Haruto Sato (Sagae) - 10:21
25th Stage (7.5 km) - Keito Adachi (Kaminoyama) - 23:22
26th Stage (3.1 km) - Kazuma Narita (Sakada) - 10:04
27th Stage (8.7 km) - Hiroto Suzuki (Tendo) - 25:41 - CR
28th Stage (16.6 km) - Koichi Shoji (Yamagata) - 48:46
29th Stage (14.2 km) - Ryoma Takeuchi (Kita Murayama) - 42:43

© 2026 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Feel good to be cyber bullied? Karma. Won’t end anytime soon either
May 5, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Hakone Champ AGU Hits 50 km a Day in Spring Break Training Camp

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...
1 comment
Read more

Ochiai, Kawamura, Usuki and Mishima Set NR - Golden Week Track Roundup

There was a lot of action on the track over Japan's Golden Week holidays. Highlights: Shizuoka International Meet - Fukuroi, 3 May Men's 800 m NR holder Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) broke his own record with a 1:43.90 win. Daigo Usuki (18 Ginko) and Gakuto Mishima (Nippatsu) both broke the NR in the T20 men's 400 m, Usuki getting the win in 49.08 and Mishima 2nd in 49.15. Lauren Bruce (New Zealand) threw a meet record 67.44 m on her final attempt in the women's hammer throw, but even her shortest throw of 64.31 m was over 3 m better than the rest of the field. Kazuki Kurokawa (Sumitomo Denko) got the men's 400 mH meet record with a 48.50 for the win. Women's 3000 mSC NR holder Miu Saito (Panasonic) won the steeple in 9:31.83, the 2nd-best time in her career so far, despite falling. 2nd through 4th all broke 10 minutes. National University Men's Ekiden Kanto Region Qualifier - Hiratsuka, 4 May The top 8 teams at November's National University Men...
Post a Comment
Read more

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

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 high...
3 comments
Read more