Skip to main content

Hakone Ekiden Field Size to be Increased by 2 Teams


Hakone Ekiden organizers KGRR announced May 18 that the Yosenkai qualifying race for next year's 103rd Hakone Ekiden will be held Oct. 17 on its usual 21.0975 km half marathon course starting at the Tachikawa Air SDF Base in western Tokyo and finishing next door at Showa Kinen Park. The top 10 teams at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January including winner Aoyama Gakuin University auto-qualified for the 103rd Hakone. All other schools in the Kanto Region must run the Yosenkai to qualify, fielding up to 12 athletes with their first 10 finishers scored on aggregate time. The 10 fastest teams will go on to the main event next January.

The field this time is expected to include Toyo University, which finished 14th at the 102nd Hakone to break a 20-year+ streak of top 10 finishes, 15th-place Nittai University which will be looking to make Hakone for the 79th year in a row, and the debuting Shibaura Kogyo University. It's an exciting mix of traditional powerhouses and up-and-coming programs doing battle for the 10 tickets to the sport's biggest race.

Beginning with the 104th Hakone Ekiden in 2028, the field size will be increased to 23 teams including the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team. In anniversary years, previously celebrated every 5 years but now changed to every 4 years, the field will include an additional 3 teams to make 26 including the Student Alliance team. The 103rd Hakone Ekiden next January will be the last with the until now standard field size of 20 teams plus the Student Alliance.

source article:

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Not sure if I like the additional teams or not but I guess it would make the top 10 battle more interesting. I know history says it's a Kanto teams race but at this point maybe extending it to all of Japan would give more benefits to the country. I don't know, on one side every year we basically watch the best long distance race on Earth, on the other side there's reasonining to find small ways to improve it without making it worse. Let's see if this brings up Yosenkai level too.
May 20, 2026 at 9:50 PM
Brett Larner said…
Mixed feelings about the extra teams for sure. It gives more people the chance to get the experience of running Hakone and over time will probably give more schools the chance to be a part of it, but the drop-off in quality as you go down the field outside the top 10 at most Yosenkai means those teams won't contribute a whole lot except to bigger white sash starts on day 2. On the other hand Hakone was 15 teams for a long time and seems to have benefitted by the move to a standard size of 20. We'll see how it plays out.
May 22, 2026 at 10:36 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

National University Championships Entry Lists and Streaming

The 95th National University Track and Field Championships run Friday through Monday at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama. The complete meet schedule and live results are here . The 10000 m races were already held separately earlier this season. Streaming starts at 9:00 a.m. Saturday Japan time, with separate field event channels and Day 2 and 3 streaming here . Top entries in each event with best performance in the qualifying window: Men 100 m Shoma Yamamoto (Hiroshima Univ.) - 10.04 Fukuto Komuro (Chuo Univ.) - 10.07 Naoki Nishioka (Tsukuba Univ.) - 10.09 Riku Oishi (Toyo Univ.) - 10.13 Kaito Kuroki (Chuo Univ.) - 10.14 Ryunosuke Mizuno (Waseda Univ.) - 10.14 Yugo Haitamataira (Juntendo Univ.) - 10.17 Shun Miyashita (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 10.19 200 m Akira Hayashi (Keio Univ.) - 20.36 Tomoru Funaki (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 20.39 Oma Asai (Tsukuba Univ.) - 20.47 Reishin Yamamoto (Toyo Univ.) - 20.49 Shingo Suzuki (Tokai Univ.) - 20.54 Haruto Nakamura (Fukuoka Univ.) - 20.55 400 m Shinya Hayashi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yuasa and Niiya Win Hokkaido Marathon, 6 Qualify for Olympic Trials

  Six more people picked up qualifying spots for next year's MGC Race at yesterday's Hokkaido Marathon in Sapporo, guaranteeing themselves places at Japan's 2028 Los Angeles Olympics marathon trials. In the men's race, Hibiki Yoshida tried to break away from the massive lead group at 30 km, opening a 25-second lead between there and 35 km before getting cut down by the chase trio of Jin Yuasa , Ken Tansho and Masato Arao . All three stayed together until the very end, Yuasa showing the same kind of closing speed he had in winning 2025 Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon and pulling away to win in 2:10:46. The debuting Tansho was next in 2:10:55, with Arao, 6th at last year's Sydney Marathon in an excellent 2:07:42, 3rd here in 2:10:59. By clearing 2:12:00 all three picked up MGC qualifying spots, freeing them up to go overseas next spring. Continuing a great season, Soka University 's Shoki Yamaguchi was 4th in 2:11:47, missing out on trials qualification but bea...
1 comment
Read more

Monterey Welcomes Student-Athletes from Sister City Nanao, Japan

a press release by the Monterey-Nanao Cross Country Exchange Project photos here Fourteen student-athletes from Nanao High School in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, recently completed a weeklong visit to the Monterey Peninsula as part of the Monterey–Nanao Cross Country Exchange Project , bringing together young people from the two Sister Cities through running, education, environmental stewardship, cultural exchange, and friendship. The seven boys and seven girls from Nanao were paired with 14 members of the Monterey High School cross country team and stayed in their homes throughout the visit. The week marked the first half of a reciprocal exchange that will continue when the Monterey students travel to Nanao later this year. The visitors received their first introduction to Monterey shortly after arriving at Monterey High School, walking with their hosts to Sister City Park and gathering for photographs beside the sign honoring Nanao — a fitting beginning for a week devoted to bringin...
Post a Comment
Read more