Course record holder and 3-time defending champ Meijo University was unstoppable again, leading start to finish to win the 2021 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden university women's national title Dec. 30 in Shizuoka. 1st-year Nanase Tanimoto got things rolling with a 12:49 win on the 4.1 km opening leg to give Meijo a 7-second lead that increased to 51 seconds over the next three legs, 2nd runner Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu holding the margin and 3rd and 4th runners Hana Inoue and Yuma Yamamoto running the fastest times on their stages. On the longest leg, the 10.5 km Fifth Stage, Yuna Wada took 45 seconds off the course record to further open Meijo's lead to 1:13, and the team's last two runners Yuka Masubuchi and Narumi Kobayashi both did their parts, Masubuchi taking the lead to 1:59 and Kobayashi to 2:58 on the tough uphill anchor stage to bring Meijo in for the win in 2:22:24 for the full 43.4 km course. But the race's main action happen...
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