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Sunday's Morinomiyako Ekiden in Sendai is one of the two big national-level ekidens on the collegiate women's ekiden circuit. This is the era of Meijo University , who have won the last seven Morinomiyako titles and the last six at December's Mt. Fuji. Women's Ekiden , and just about the only real story here is whether anyone can stop them. Five out the six members of last year's winning team, Nanaka Yonezawa , Kaede Rikimaru , Asuka Ishimatsu , Saki Harada , and Nanase Tanimoto , are back, and the only one missing, 2nd-year Naru Yabutani , finished the lowest on the team on her stage at 4th last time. Tanimoto, the only 4th-year on the team, has had more downs than ups this season, but that was true last year too and Meijo came through. Perpetual 2nd-placer Daito Bunka University was only 52 seconds behind over the 38.0 km Morinomiyako course, and that was with one of its runners finishing only 12th on her stage. Its entire 2023 lineup is back, led by 2nd-year S...

Six-time defending national champion Meijo University came to Sunday's Morinomiyako Ekiden national university women's championships with the weakest team since before its reign started in 2017, but with a flawless team performance that saw all six women on the team make top 4 on their stage Meijo beat the odds to go home with a record-breaking 7th-straight national title. Previous dynasty Ritsumeikan University came out hard with stage wins on the first two legs of the 38.0 km race, but a win on the 5.8 km Third Stage by Meijo 2nd-year Asuka Ishimatsu on her 20th birthday turned a 6-second deficit to Ritsumeikan into a 31-second lead. That closed to 15 seconds by the end of the Fifth Stage, but another stage win from anchor Nanase Tanimoto was enough to give Meijo the win by 52 seconds. 2nd eight times in the last 10 years, Daito Bunka University landed there again thanks to a stage win on the 9.2 km Fifth Stage by Sarah Wanjiru and a wicked kick over the last 100 m on ...

The thing about dynasties is that sooner or later they're going to end. From 2003 to 2016 Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University won the Morinomiyako National University Women's Ekiden ten times and took 2nd the four times they didn't. But in 2017 Nagoya's Meijo University arrived on the scene and has won every year since then, its current streak of six national titles longer than Ritsumeikan's longest uninterrupted streak. Meijo holds the overall record of 2:02:57 for the 6-stage, 38.1 km course, slightly edited to 38.0 km this year, and its runners hold four of the six individual stage records. It keeps graduating top talent, most recently joint Third Stage CR record holders Narumi Kobayashi and Yuma Yamamoto , but head coach Katsuro Yoneda just keeps finding the top talent and helping it develop. But this season Meijo has been looking a little shaky. Out of last year's lineup, Fourth Stage CR breaker Nanase Tanimoto was 7th in last month's National Univ...

The 9-stage, 42.195 km National Women's Ekiden takes place Jan. 15 in Kyoto starting and finishing at Takebishi Stadium. Absent from the stage entry list published Jan. 14 was the Gunma prefecture team's Seira Fuwa , 19, the collegiate 10000 m national record holder and a 2nd-year at Takushoku University . Her high school coach Hatsuo Kitada is serving as the Gunma team's coach this year. "We're looking toward her future," he said. "Now's not the time to overdo it." At last year's National Women's Ekiden Fuwa passed 13 people on the 4.0 km 4th leg, breaking its course record. Following that performance she sustained an Achilles tendon injury that kept her out of competition for most of 2022. In October she won her stage at the Morinomiyako Ekiden, but in order to ensure her continued recovery she did not run in December's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national championships. Wakana Kabasawa of 2022 National Corporate Women's Eki...

Earlier this week after the Princess Ekiden my friend Becky asked a couple of good questions. "I'm always curious on why they don't let women run Hakone, and why women-only ekidens are so much shorter," she said. Japan is hopelessly behind on a lot of social issues, especially women's equality. In March this year the World Economic Forum ranked Japan 120th out of 156 countries in gender equality, just over a month after Tokyo Olympics organizing committee head and former prime minister Yoshiro Mori  was forced to, publicly at least, step down from his position after making comments derogatory of women. Which is not to say that that stopped him from turning up at the Olympic Stadium to catch Olympic athletics action and hang with his boys Thomas Bach  and Seb Coe this past summer, of course. On the other hand, things can also be oddly progressive at times. Japan was the first country in the world to put on an annual women-only marathon, way back in 1979 before it...

Following the cancelation of the Kanto Region University Women's Ekiden, on Aug. 18 the Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto announced that the teams it will send to the Oct. 25 National University Women's Ekiden will instead be chosen based on the results at a series of 5000 m track races to be held Sept. 26 at Juntendo University in Inzai, Chiba. Each team vying for Nationals will field six runners, with the four schools with the lowest combined times for their six women earning places. Due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the meet will be held without spectators. The top eight teams at last year's Nationals have already qualified for the return trip this year, among them the Kanto region programs Daito Bunka University , Nittai University and Josai University . Translator's note: This news follows the Hokkaido region holding its usual qualifying ekiden this past Saturday, the first elite-level road race in Japan since March 8. The qualifying method ...

The 32nd Hokkaido University Ekiden took place Aug. 15 on a 3.26 km loop course inside Sapporo's Moerenuma Park. In the six-stage, 35.86 km women's race, which served as the regional qualifier for the Oct. 25 Morinomiyako Ekiden national championships in Sendai, Sapporo Kokusai University swept all six stage bests to win in a new event record of 2:06:13. Overcoming the challenges of the coronavirus era, it was Sapporo Kokusai's fourth-straight win. Captain Reo Aoyama  lit the fuse when she took the lead on the 6.52 km First Stage. At last year's Nationals she was responsible for the First Stage but finished last in 25th, the team only managing to pull itself up to 22nd by the end of the race. "I wanted to get rid of last year's disappointment with this run and get our season off the ground with some momentum," she said. Aoyama succeeded in that goal, handing off with a margin of almost 4 minutes on 2nd place. Head coach since the team was founded, ...

Daito Bunka University  and  Ritsumeikan University  try to take down two-time defending national champ Meijo University at the 2019 Morinomiyako Ekiden.

Daito Bunka University , Ritsumeikan University and Tokyo Nogyo University try to take down defending national champ Meijo University at the 2018 Morinomiyako Ekiden.

Championship ekiden week is here, four days of road relay action spread across five days from Dec. 30 to Jan. 3, all broadcast live to millions of fans across the nation. Last year Nagoya's Meijo University beat five-time champ Ritsumeikan University to win the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden , the National University Women's Ekiden Championships invitational, in course record time. This season Meijo looked pretty well unbeatable at the mid-season Morinomiyako Ekiden , beating runner-up Daito Bunka University by over two and a half minutes and Ritsumeikan by more than three over Morinomiyako's six-stage, 38.1 km course. Mount Fuji's is more demanding, seven hilly stages totaling 43.4 km through the foothills of Mount Fuji. Last year Meijo, Daito Bunka and Ritsumeikan finished within two and a half minutes of each other, and with Meijo looking even better this season it'll be hard for either of its main rival teams, or any others, to close that gap up. Watch th...

The National University Women's Ekiden Championships took place Oct. 27 in Sendai, covering a six-stage, 38.1 km course from Koshin Gomu Athlete Park field to Sendai City Hall. Meijo University ran 2:04:34 to better the field by almost three minutes for its third-straight national title. Daito Bunka University was 2nd behind Meijo for the third year in a row, with ten-time national champ Ritsumeikan University taking 3rd. 4th-place Matsuyama University through 8th-place Kansai University joined the top three in earning guaranteed places at the 2020 National Championships. Meijo started slow, sitting 9th after the opening stage, but its second runner Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu passed eight people to move the defending national champs into 1st. From there to the finish Meijo held on to the lead despite a serious mid-race challenge from Daito Bunka. A stage win from Daito Bunka's third runner Yuka Suzuki brought them within 3 seconds of Meijo, but while fourth runner Yuk...

After an unexpected breakthrough last year to win its first national title in 12 years, Meijo University took full advantage of its new recruits to win the Morinomiyako Ekiden , the Japanese University Women's Ekiden Championships, for the second year in a row Sunday in Sendai. First-year Yuna Wada , who set up Nozomi Tanaka for the gold medal in this year's U20 World Championships 3000 m, took it out hard for Meijo, winning the 6.4 km First Stage by two seconds over Naruha Sato of last year's 3rd-placer Ritsumeikan University . After a rocky start 2017 runner-up Daito Bunka University 's Yuka Suzuki made up a 42-second deficit on the 5.6 km Second Stage, turning it into a 15-second lead over Ritsumeikan with Meijo dropping to 3rd. Star Meijo first-year Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu got it back under control, just missing the CR on the 6.8 km Third Stage as she put Meijo back into the lad for good. DBU, Ritsumeikan and darkhorse Tokyo Nogyo University battled to...

Three main races make up the lion's share of this road racing action, two abroad and one on home ground. Bouncing back from a bad run three weeks ago at the Chicago Marathon, 2018 Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) will make his Italian debut at the Huawei Venice Marathon with support from JRN. Since Chicago Kawauchi has raced twice, a 1:05:18 the weekend after Chicago at the Namerikawa Half Marathon and a 1:00:48 for 2nd at last weekend's Takashimadaira 20 km.The Takashimadaira time equates to a 1:04:08 half marathon, and given that rate rate of improvement over Namerikawa and his 14:47 closing split he is optimistic about Venice. "If the pack gets into a good rhythm early on then I think I can run in 2:10 to 2:12 range," he said. Most years that would put him in contention for the win in Venice, and with his 2018 best standing at 2:11:46 and the fastest time ever by a Japanese man on Italian soil at 2:12:51 he's got good seco...

With skies hanging heavy in the hours before the impending arrival of Typhoon #24, Tokyo Nogyo University won the 24th Kanto Region University Women's Ekiden to lead the qualifiers for the Oct. 28 Morinomiyako Ekiden university women's national championships. Always in the top two, Tokyo Nogyo didn't take a definitive lead until the 3.9 Fourth Stage, when 1st-year Yuki Shibahara scored the team's only stage win of the day to overtake 2017 Morinomiyako runner-up Daito Bunka University . From there to the finish it opened a 1:16 lead over Daito Bunka, easily winning in 1:39:05. Daito Bunka's lead over 2017 winner  Toyo University was almost as big, finishing in 1:40:21 to Toyo's 1:41:17. Including teams which earned seeded spots at last year's national championships the top eight teams qualified for this year's nationals. 7th-placer Takushoku University , whose men's team progressively features Ethiopian Workneh Derese as captain, qualified...

3rd last year, Meijo University returned to the top with its first national title since 2005 at today's National University Women's Ekiden Championships in Sendai. Missing its star pair Anju Takamizawa and Riho Takamizawa (no relation), defending champion Matsuyama University was never in the race, 25th of 26 teams on the 6.4 km First Stage and eventually working its way up to 13th. 6 seconds out of 1st, Meijo took over the lead on the 5.6 km Second Stage and held it almost the entire rest of the way. With a record of ten wins and four 2nd-place finishes in the last 14 years, last year's runner-up Ritsumeikan University went into 1st on the 4.8 km Fourth Stage thanks to a stage best run by Ayano Tanaka , setting up a duel between course record holder Kotona Ota (Ritsumeikan Univ.) and #1-ranked first-year Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) on the day's longest stage, the 9.2 km Fifth Stage. Kaseda caught Ota within the first 3 km, but while it looked like the young...

The university men's ekiden season is already well underway, but for women the first of the season's national-level university ekidens takes place this Sunday with Sendai's Morinomiyako Ekiden , the National University Women's Ekiden Championships . Starting in 2003 Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University became an almost unstoppable force, winning ten national titles and three 2nd-place finishes in thirteen years including five-straight from 2011 to 2015. Last year they were knocked back to 2nd by first-time national champion Matsuyama University but came back with a season-ending win over Matsuyama and 3rd-placer Meijo University at the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden. All three schools are back and feature as the three favorites, Matsuyama led by fourth-year Anju Takamizawa , a 2016 Rio Olympian in the 3000 m steeplechase, and 2005 national champion Meijo led by first-year Rika Kaseda , runner-up in the 5000 m at September's National University Track and Field Ch...

On Oct. 11 the Inter-University Athletics Union of Japan ( IUAU ) released the entry lists for the Morinomiyako Ekiden , the National University Women's Ekiden Championships to be held Oct. 29 in Sendai. A Rio de Janeiro Olympian in the 3000 m steeplechase, Anju Takamizawa will return to lead Matsuyama University in its shot at a second-straight national title. Other noteworthy names on the entry lists include National University Track and Field Championships 5000 m winner Maho Shimizu (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), National University Individual Track and Field Championships 5000 m winner Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) and World University Games half marathon gold medalist Yuki Munehisa (Tokyo Nogyo University). source article:  http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20171011/ath17101119210001-n1.html translated by Brett Larner

In just its fifth season, the Kansai Gaikokugo University (Kansai Gaidai) women's ekiden team has qualified for the National University Women's Ekiden Championships for the fourth year in a row. Held in Sendai on Oct. 29, the race will be broadcast live on Nippon TV starting at 12:10 p.m. on the 29th. 26 teams from across the country, including 8 teams seeded from last year, 17 regional qualifiers and a Tohoku Region University Select Team will compete over the 6 stage, 38 km course from Koshin Gomu Athlete Park Sendai to Sendai City Hall Civic Plaza. The Kansai Gaidai women qualified for this year's Nationals by finishing 6th in 1:43:17 at the Sept. 23 Kansai Region University Women's Ekiden. With 3 of the 6 places available to Kansai Region schools taken by top-placing teams from last year who were seeded for this year's Nationals, Kansai Gaidai finished 3rd among the programs that secured the 3 remaining qualifying spots. The Kansai Gaidai women's ekid...

by Brett Larner Rio de Janeiro Olympics 3000 m steeplechase runner  Anju Takamizawa , the first Japanese university woman to ever make an Olympic team in a distance event, led Matsuyama University to take down five-time defending national champion Ritsumeikan University and become the first school from the Chugoku-Shikoku Region to ever win the National University Women's Ekiden Championships title Sunday in Sendai. 【杜の都駅伝】 松山大学初優勝です！ pic.twitter.com/ftXf43wke1 — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) October 30, 2016 3rd last year, Matsuyama lined up against Ritsumeikan, Kanto Region champ and 2015 runner-up Daito Bunka University  and 23 other teams at the Morinomiyako Ekiden , as Nationals are popularly called.  Ritsumeikan got off to a rocky start, its lead runner Nanako Kanno  eight seconds behind 1500 m national university champion Natsu Hashimoto (Kyoto Sangyo Univ.) in 6th, but for Matsuyama and Daito Bunka the First Stage was a disaster. Matsuyama senior Ayumi U...

by Brett Larner Ekiden season rolls on this Sunday with the Morinomiyako Ekiden , the 34th edition of the National University Women's Ekiden .  25 university teams and one regional select team will race over 38.0 km in six stages.  Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University has won the national title ten times in the last thirteen years and is in the middle of the longest streak in the championships' history, with five straight wins behind them and looking to add a sixth.  The last team to beat them, Kyoto rivals Bukkyo University , have completely disappeared since the departure of head coach Kenichi Morikawa to take over at the Yamada Denki women's corporate team, while the only other team to beat Ritsumeikan since 2003, 2005 champ Meijo University of Aichi, was 5th last year almost four minutes behind Ritsumeikan. Ritsumeikan won September's Kansai Region University Women's Ekiden , but its margin over runner-up Kyoto Sangyo University was only 24 seconds over ...