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  Following Aoyama Gakuin University 's scoring its second Hakone Ekiden threepeat , 4th-year Asahi Kuroda  was awarded Hakone's MVP and Kanakuri Cup. The MVP award goes to the runner who made the biggest individual contribution to the winning team's success, with the Kanakuri Cup going to the outstanding overall individual performance of the race, as decided by a vote among coaches of the teams at this year's race. On the first day of the Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2, Kuroda set a new CR of 1:07:16 on the 20.8 km Fifth Stage, which rises from near sea level to a peak elevation of 874 m before dropping to finish at 731 m. His incredible time took 1:55 off the 1:09:11 CR set just a year earlier by his former Aoyama Gakuin teammate Hiroki Wakabayashi  and catapulted Aoyama Gakuin from 5th place into the lead, breaking its own Day One CR and setting it up to front run the second day to the overall win. "I've never gotten the MVP award before, and that was one thing I ...

Pretty much every year I write something about how the level of the college athletes at the Hakone Ekiden just keeps going up and up. This year too, the performances by collegiate men at February's Marugame Half and last month's string of 10000 m time trial meets were off the charts. There's got to be a peak somewhere, but it doesn't look like it's anywhere close. How much have things really progressed? Let's take a quick look at the level of the fields at some of the Hakones since 2005. That year there were 19 college teams and one select team, so for the sake of consistency these numbers represent the top 19-ranked teams in the field at each Hakone. With Hakone happening on Jan. 2-3 every year, the listed years are the Hakone year, with the performances listed happening in the calendar year before that. Progression in the 5000 m from 2005 to 2020 was pretty steady, the largest jump happening between 2005 and 2010 at about 3 sec/km. After almost no change from...

It’s been a big month for Japanese men’s marathoning. Across four races in the 29 days from February 2nd to March 2nd, the Feb. 2 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon , Feb. 9 Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon , Feb. 24 Osaka Marathon and Mar. 2 Tokyo Marathon , from 2:05:39 to 2:09:55 a total of 47 Japanese men broke 2:10 in the marathon. Ethiopia has had 48 under 2:10 so far in 2025, a lot of them in January, and all other countries combined a total of 59, so it’s pretty safe to say Japan is the country that’s been having the biggest impact on World Athletics’ top lists over the last month. Osaka is the heavyweight of the four races, with 28 of the sub-2:10s and four of the five fastest times including both 2:05 performances, Ryota Kondo ’s 2:05:39 debut for 2nd and Kyohei Hosoya ’s 2:05:58 PB. Tokyo was next with eleven sub-2:10 performances led by Tsubasa Ichiyama in a 2:06:00 PB, Beppu-Oita next with seven topped by a 2:06:07 debut by Hiroki Wakabayashi , and Nobeoka producing a 2:09:43 wi...

After running a debut and collegiate record of 2:06:07 at Sunday's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon as the last race of his career, Aoyama Gakuin University 4th-year Hiroki Wakabayashi said on Feb. 3 that he would consider keeping it going for the half year it would take if he is named to the Japanese team for September's Tokyo World Championships. Wakabayashi plans to retire and has already accepted a job at the Nihon Seimei insurance company. "If I'm named to the team I'll have to discuss it with the company," he said cautiously. Wakabayashi's time in Beppu-Oita was the 7th-fastest ever by a Japanese man and cleared the 2:06:30 Tokyo World Championships standard, positioning him as a candidate for the team. Having already accepted a job to start after his graduation next month, immediately post-race he said, "I ran this thinking of it as the last race of my career. I think I was able to run this kind of time because I knew it was the end of the road...

As if the results in Marugame weren't enough, university runners played a major role in the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon too. Expectations were that last year's Osaka Marathon winner Kiyoto Hirabayashi , captain of this season's Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden winner Koku Gakuin University and who set the collegiate and debut marathon records of 2:06:18 in winning Osaka, was going to dominate the race and the massive lead pack keyed off him most of the way. By Beppu standards pacing was fast, skimming just under 3:00/km through a 1:03:17 first half and 1:29:48 at 30 km. The lead pack was still 9-deep at that point, with Kenyans Vincent Kipchumba and Dominic Nyairo , last year's winner Derese Workneh , and 6 Japanese men, 2 from Koku Gakuin, 2 from Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University and 2 from the corporate leagues. Hirabayashi was quick to attack after the pacers stopped at 30 km, shaking off everyone except Kipchumba, 2:06:57 man Shohei Otsuk...

With just over 2 weeks to go the Feb. 2 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon has finally announced its elite field. It looks pretty good at the front end at first glance, but #1-ranked Vincent Kipchumba hasn't finished a marathon since his 2:04:28 best in London 4 years ago and has only run one race, a 29:05 10 km in 2023. #2-ranked Kiyoto Hirabayashi of Koku Gakuin University , winner in Osaka last year in a collegiate and debut record 2:06:18, is very unlikely to actually start, and #3-ranked Yohanes Ghebregergis likewise hasn't run a marathon since his 2:06:28 best in 2021 and only a single half marathon, 1:02:15 last spring, since then. So, that leaves a pretty tasty matchup between 2021 Tokyo Olympics alternate Shohei Otsuka , 2:06:57, last year's winner Derese Workneh , 2:07:58 in his Beppu-Oita victory, and Tesfahun Akalnew , 2:07:59. Another 5 people are at the 2:08 level, and then there are a truckload of 1:01 half marathoners taking a shot at the marathon distance. Ru...

A Chinese influencer ignored restrictions and race officials' directions and ran on the Hakone Ekiden course to shoot video during the race's uphill Fifth Stage on Jan. 2. He later apologized. The influencer, Shen Haoze , posts about running and marathons, and on the Chinese social media site Weibo has nearly 5 million followers. A clip of him running on the closed road course of the Hakone Ekiden's Fifth Stage alongside course record setter Hiroki Wakabayashi of defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University and shooting video went viral on social media. Race officials can be heard warning him to get off the course due to the danger to the competing athletes, but Shen ignored them, setting off a firestorm of criticism from users in both Japan and China. Comments included, "These athletes are putting their whole lives into the race. What the hell does he think he's doing?" and "He has no regard for the danger to them." Shen later posted an apology on...

It was another record-breaking year at the Hakone Ekiden . All 13 of the course records, the 10 individual stages, the Day One and Day Two courses and the overall course, have been set since 2019, and out of those 6 fell this time, 2 of them broken by multiple athletes or teams. All of them had performances in at least their all-time top 6, and 9 of them in their all-time top 3. First Stage (21.3 km) - all-time #4 Second Stage (23.1 km) - CR, all-time #2, all-time #3, all-time #9 Third Stage (21.4 km) - all-time #4, all-time #5, all-time #7 Fourth Stage (20.9 km) - all-time #2, all-time #7, all-time #8, all-time #9 Fifth Stage (20.8 km uphill) - CR, all-time #3 Sixth Stage (20.8 km downhill) - CR, all-time #5, all-time #9 Seventh Stage (21.3 km) - CR, all-time #4 (x2), all-time #7 Eighth Stage (21.4 km) - all-time #6, all-time #9, all-time #10 Ninth Stage (23.1 km) - all-time #6, all-time #10 Tenth Stage (23.0 km) - all-time #2, all-time #7 Day One (107.5 km) - all-time #2...

Chuo University came out hard on Day One of the 2025 Hakone Ekiden , leading from the gun until partway through Hakone's great equalizer, the uphill Fifth Stage. Gunning for his older brother Yamato Yoshii 's 1:00:40 CR for the 21.3 km opening leg, Chuo's Shunsuke Yoshii went it alone, coming up short of the the record at 1:01:07, 1:00:33 half marathon pace, but almost a minute and a half ahead of nearest competitor Yudai Kiyama from Komazawa University . Itta Tameike ran what would normally be a great time on the 23.1 km Second Stage, 1:06:39, but behind him collegiate 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University , Soka University 's top man Hibiki Yoshida and last year's Second Stage winner Asahi Kuroda of defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University all broke the 1:05:49 course record to cut Chuo's lead down to 40 seconds. In Hakone's first 100 years only two runners had ever broken 66 minutes on the Secon...

The biggest road race of the year is days away, with the Hakone Ekiden entering its second century on Jan. 2 and 3. 20 university teams and one select team race 217.1 km in 10 legs from central Tokyo to the mountains near Mt. Fuji and back, with Nippon TV broadcasting the whole thing live and nationwide to an audience in the tens of millions. TVer is streaming Day One here starting at 7:50 a.m. local time on Jan. 2, and Day Two here at 7:50 a.m. again. If you've got a VPN you should be good to go. JRN will be on-site at the Day One finish line and Day Two start line and will be doing some coverage on @JRNLive . At October's Izumo Ekiden and November's National University Ekiden Koku Gakuin University , Komazawa University and Aoyama Gakuin University went 1-2-3, and the main question at Hakone is whether it'll be the same order again. Komazawa is the heavyweight legacy school of the three, with 8 wins and 18 top 3 finishes at Hakone in the last 25 years under ex...