by Brett Larner The men's Big Three University Ekidens, the Izumo Ekiden, National University Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden, are some of Japan's most popular sports events, their live nationwide broadcasts drawing tens of millions of viewers. By comparison, the university women's ekiden season lags behind, down at one point to just October's Morinomiyako National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai but back up to two in the 2013-14 year with the relaunch of the discontinued National University Women's Invitational Ekiden on a new course as the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden . This season a completely new event, the one-way massively uphill Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden , brings things up to parity. In a way. In profile the Nikko Irohazaka course is almost identical to that of Hakone's most famous stage, the Fifth Stage, with 875 m of non-stop climb over 23.4 km, the steepest section coming just after halfway before flattening out and dropping in the f...
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