Komazawa Breaks Course Record in Anchor Stage Turnaround to Win Best-Ever National University Men's Ekiden
About three quarters of the way through the 52nd running of the National University Men's Ekiden broadcast commentator Yasuyuki Watanabe , head coach of the Sumitomo Denko corporate team, former Waseda University head coach, and one of the all-time greats of the university ekiden world, said, "I've been doing race commentary for five years now, and this is the best race I've ever seen." And he was right. It was. It was a strange fluke that defending champion Tokai University and the three favorites, Juntendo University , Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University , got off to very rocky starts. Two stages into the day's eight Komazawa was in 9th, Juntendo 10th after leading the first stage, AGU a dismal 14th, and Tokai an unthinkable 17th in a field of 25. The door was open for some of the ambitious teams ranked in the middle of the field to take advantage of the situation, and teams like #7-ranked Josai University , #8-ranked Meiji University , ...