by Brett Larner 100 km came down to a lean at the tape as Team Toyota won its first-ever New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championship title in a thrilling sprint finish over 2009 champion Team Fujitsu and 2010 champion Team Nissin Shokuhin . With an unusual number of teams losing key players to injury Toyota's chances looked good pre-race as it held the largest number of sub-28 10000 m, the fruition of several years under the leadership of head coach Toshinobu Sato who had previously turned Team Konica Minolta into one of the country's best. After two good opening stages Third Stage runner Yusuke Takabayashi set a new stage record of 38:02 for the 13.6 km course to put Toyota into the lead, and it remained in the top pack of four throughout the next three stages. Toyota anchor Takeshi Kumamoto started in 3rd and, when quickly overtaken by defending Seventh Stage winner Hiroyuki Ono of defending champion Nissin Shokuhin, latched on to close the small gap...
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