Ekiden week rolls on with the first major race of 2021 worldwide, the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships. Asahi Kasei is going for a fifth-straight national title, something they've managed twice before with six-packs of wins in 1978-1983 and 1990-1995. And really, who's going to stop them? In September Asahi Kasei took delivery of the world's largest low-pressure altitude training facility so that they didn't have to deal with traveling to get to altitude, and just look at the results. At the National Championships earlier this month they had five guys under 28 minutes for 10000 m including a 27:18.75 national record from rookie Akira Aizawa , and a sixth man, Shuho Dairokuno , across the line in 28:01.29. And both of their Kenyan runners Robert Mwei and Benuel Mogeni are sub-28. And they have other guys like Hiroshi Ichida who aren't quite up to that level but always deliver come ekiden day. Asahi Kasei broke the New Y...
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