japan running news

After a rough start to the season last month at the Izumo Ekiden , Tokai University lived up to its #1 ranking as it held off defending national champion Aoyama Gakuin University on the anchor stage of the National University Men's Ekiden to win its first national title in 16 years. In a lot of ways it was one of the more chaotic major university ekidens in recent memory, with almost every team that ended up on the eight-deep podium suffering at least one disastrous stage that saw one of its runners finish in the double digit placings on stage time. But over Nationals' full eight-stage, 106.8 km course these seemed to cancel each other out, the expected top nine teams all landing in the top ten with one unexpected interloper. A bizarrely slow First Stage, 15:20 through 5 km, resulted in a predictably blazing last 4.5 km, with last year's Second Stage winner Tomoya Ogikubo (Josai Univ.) getting away to hand off in 1st in 27:49 almost 10 seconds up on top two-ranked...

Team captain Haruki Minatoya , Second Stage runner Shun Yuzawa and other 4th--years who helped lead Tokai University to its first-ever win at the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden graduated from Tokai at a ceremony at the university's Shonan Campus in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa on Mar. 25. "My greatest memory of these four years was, of course, winning the Hakone Ekiden this year," said Minatoya as Yuzawa smiled widely in agreement. Tokai beat four-time defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University by a margin of 3:41to take Japan's biggest win for the first time. The pair capped their four years pursuing Hakone dreams with the grandest of finales, but for both Minatoya and Yuzawa there were tough times along the way. "After I was named captain I couldn't run at all," said Minatoya. "It was really hard, and I was very sorry for what it meant for everyone else." At November's National University Ekiden Championships Minatoya started the Seventh Stage ...