by Brett Larner In a repeat of last year's performance, Meiji University prevailed in rainy conditions to win the Kanto Regional Qualifying Meet for the November's National University Ekiden Championships having missed out on breaking into the six national seeded positions after last year's regional win. Excluding the schools which were made the seeded rankings at last year's Nationals, the twenty fastest Kanto-region schools sent teams of eight to Tokyo's National Stadium on June 21 to run the qualifier. Each team's eight runners were split into pairs by PB, each pair running in one of four 10000 m heats. At the end of the fourth heat teams were ranked by the aggregate times of their eight runners, with the top six teams qualifying for the National Ekiden. Highlights of Kodai Matsumoto's win in the fourth heat. Click here for the full-length video. Meiji simply outclassed all competitors, with seven of its eight runners making the top five in their heats ...
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