Entry lists are out for Japan's biggest and best road race, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden . 21 university teams from around the Tokyo area will field ten runners from the sixteen on their entry list, each runner taking on roughly a half marathon length over the ten-stage race. 2017 Izumo Ekiden winner Tokai University is the class of the field, one of only five teams to enter all ten of its best athletes and the only one with ten-runner averages under 14 minutes for 5000 m, under 29 for 10000 m and 1:03 for the half marathon. At all three distances its averages are slightly better than Aoyama Gakuin University 's were last year when AGU won its third-straight Hakone title, and no other school even comes closer over the most relevant distance, the half marathon. It has never won Hakone, but this year it's Tokai's race to lose. AGU has been hit by injury troubles this year, losing in both Izumo and the National University Ekiden and missing several key members from ...
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