The Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden is the only major championship ekiden that doesn't give podium placers auto-qualification for the next year, forcing corporate men's teams to run the regional qualifiers every November and impacting runners' ability to do a fall marathon. The Olympic marathon trials 3 weeks ago impacted the dynamic this time, as any team that had had someone at the Trials and finished its regional qualifier would make the New Year Ekiden regardless of whether it finished in the bracket. That didn't really come into play much at the Kyushu Region Corporate Ekiden in Fukuoka, where 7 of the 9 teams in contention for 8 qualifying spots had people at the Trials. Kurosaki Harima led start to finish, its lead duo Yusuke Tamura and Sitonik Kiprono both winning their stages to give the team a 31 second lead. Traditional power Asahi Kasei came on strong in the middle of the race with stage wins from Takashi Ichida and Ryo Saito and an excellent new CR of 31:18 fo...
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