Despite missing star 2nd-year Mebuki Suzuki , last year's national champion Komazawa University pulled-off a late stage reversal to win a second-straight National University Men's Ekiden title by one of the tightest margins in the race's history. First-year Shoji Sato broke the course record on the opening leg by 2 seconds to put Komazawa out front, but a string of weak runs on the middle stages knocked it off the eight-deep podium. It took until the Sixth Stage for Komazawa's luck to turn around with 2nd-year Taiyo Yasuhara taking them from 9th to 4th. That put #1 man Ren Tazawa in position to take the lead by 18 seconds over the perpetually strong Aoyama Gakuin University with the fastest-ever time by a Japanese man on the stage, 50:36 for 17.6 km. AGU anchor Takayuki Iida reeled in Komazawa's Yuki Hanao midway through the 19.7 km stage, but instead of going by he tucked in. Hanao responded by gradually slowing down, saving ...
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