japan running news

Video Research, Inc. announced on Jan. 5 that the average viewership rating for Nippon TV's broadcast of the 102nd Hakone Ekiden reached 28.5% for the first day of the race on Jan. 2, and 30.2% for the second day on Jan. 3, an average of 29.4% for the complete broadcast. Last year's race had ratings of 27.9% for Day One, 28.8% for Day Two, and an average of 28.4%. The total viewership for the overall two-day race was 56,217,000, up nearly 800,000 from the 2025 broadcast . 42,679,000 tuned in for the Day One broadcast and 45,547,000 for Day Two. Average audience size was 17,324,000 for the complete broadcast, 16,521,000 for Day One, and 18,012,000 for Day Two. This year's peak viewership rating on Jan. 2 of 33.7% was between 13:13 and 13:14 when Aoyama Gakuin University 's Asahi Kuroda ran down leader Shinsaku Kudo of Waseda University near the end of the uphill Fifth Stage. The overall peak rating of 34.7% came at 9:10 a.m. on Jan. 3 when Aoi Ito of Komazawa Univer...

Aoyama Gakuin University head coach Susumu Hara  took the opposite of the usual approach on Day One of the 102nd Hakone Ekiden yesterday, starting with his weakest two runners and building up to his absolute best. First runner Hikaru Ogawara was only 16th of 21, but Day One anchor Asahi Kuroda delivered one of the best performances in Hakone history on the uphill Fifth Stage, breaking its CR by 2 almost 2 minutes and coming from over a kilometer behind to give AGU the Day One win in CR time. With AGU's 9th win in the last 12 years and its second threepeat in the works, it blew apart the rest of the field over the 5-stage, 109.6 km Day Two course. Last year AGU's Akimu Nomura became the first runner to break 57 minutes on the 20.8 km Sixth Stage that kicks off the second day of the legendary race, starting at 731 m, climbing to 874 m in the first 5 km, then dropping to near sea level by its end. Popular speculation pre-race was that AGU would get caught by at least one of ...

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-ranked Komazawa University came on strong over the second half of the National University Ekiden to take a record 17th national title, more than any other program in the national championship race's 57-year history. It had its share of dominant single-stage runs, but more than that this year's Komazawa lineup was consistent across the board, the only school to put all 8 of its runners into the top 5 on their stages, all but 2 of them in the top 3. Over the first 2 legs it was never more than 3 seconds out of 1st, moving up into that position by 1 seconds on the 3rd leg with a good run from 4th-year Yudai Kiyama . 3rd-year Kaisei Yasuhara was the weakest link with only the 5th-best time on the 4th leg, dropping Komazawa back to 4th and 35 seconds behind #2-ranked Chuo University 's Daichi Shibata . But on the next leg Komazawa 4th-year Aoi Ito turned it back around with the biggest run at this year's Nationals, running 35:01 for the 12.4 km 5th leg, 17 seconds unde...

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi...

Riding the momentum of its Day One win yesterday, Komazawa University dominated Day Two of the 99th Hakone Ekiden for the overall win. Combined with its CR wins at the Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden, the Hakone victory made Komazawa only the 5th school to score the triple crown of major ekiden wins in a single season. It was the first triple crown of head coach Hiroaki Oyagi 's career, his biggest achievement at the biggest road race in the world, the one that has eluded him for decades. And, with his post-race announcement that he will step back from his role as head coach, it was his last. Komazawa started Day Two with a 30-second lead over last year's 6th-placer Chuo University and 2:03 over 2022 Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin University . Following the success of 1st-year Takuma Yamakawa on the uphill 5th leg yesterday, Oyagi opted to put 1st-year Aoi Ito on the steep downhill 6th leg. Ito excelled, outrunning Chuo's Haruto Wakabayashi by 17 seconds to ...

Two weeks after running 14:44.83 at Kanagawa's Nittai University Time Trials , 22-year-old Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) continued her rise up the ranks to global relevance with another stellar run at Nittai on Sunday. Running in the fastest 3000 m heat with support from 19-year-old Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera), Akidor took nearly 20 seconds off her best with an 8:32.53 for the win. That was the fastest ever run in Japan by 3 seconds and enough to put her #8 in the world this year. Mwikali was solid too at 8:37.17, almost 10 seconds under her previous best and the next-best ever run in Japan apart from two dodgy early '90s marks by Soviet athletes. 3rd-placer Mizuki Michishita (Rikkyo Univ.) was in another league at 9:13.68. Kazuna Kanetomo (Kyocera) won the women's 5000 m A-heat in 15:56.42, the only woman under 15 minutes. In the men's 5000 m Kenyan Richard Etir won the A-heat in 13:16.20, a time beaten this weekend only by Benard Koech (Kyudenko) at Fukuoka's ...