japan running news

On June the KGRR released the entry lists for the Kanto Region qualifying race for the Nov. 3 National University Men's Ekiden. Taking place June 23 at Kanagawa's Sagamihara Gion Stadium, the Kanto Region qualifier consists of four heats of 10000 m, with participating school fielding two runners per heat and scored on the total time of its eight entrants. The seven fastest teams will go on to November's Nationals. Going for its 11th-straight Nationals appearance, Tokai University is led by 3rd-duo Hisaya Hanaoka , who was a standout at last month's Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, and Judah Hyodo . Tokai's combined time of 3:48:37.21 for its eight entrants makes it the fastest in the field, an average of 28:34.65 per runner. 4th-year Yuto Kajitani and 3rd-year Makoto Takewari also feature in Tokai's lineup. Missing the podium at Nationals last year, Toyo University is back at the Kanto qualifier for the first time in two years. In the ...

Aoyama Gakuin University brought the first century of the Hakone Ekiden to a close with a dominant performance that took over two minutes off its own course record to put an end to defending champ Komazawa University 's hopes of becoming the first team to win all three major university ekidens two years in a row. After a hard-fought opening day that saw both teams break the Day One course record , Aoyama Gakuin's Akimu Nomura needed to hold its 2:38 lead over Komazawa over the downhill Sixth Stage, 20.8 km with a steep climb at the start and an ~800 m drop to the exchange zone, and when he opened it to 4:17 the race was all but over. Komazawa's Taiyo Yasuhara initially closed incrementally on AGU's Kento Yamauchi on the 21.3 km Seventh Stage, but Yamauchi turned it around in the second half to outrun Yasuhara by 27 seconds. AGU head coach Susumu Hara had put two of his best runners on the next two stages in an evident plan to cover any scenario in which Komazawa wa...