japan running news

On May 13 the Uniqlo women's corporate team announced that it had appointed Aoyama Gakuin University head coach Susumu Hara as special advisor. Hara became head coach at AGU in 2004, turning from a team that had been absent from the Hakone Ekiden for decades into a winning program by 2015. In the 11 editions since its first win in 2015, AGU has won Hakone 8 times under Hara's leadership. In 2019 he became a professor in AGU's Department of Global Studies, and in 2024 he was named chair of the KGRR collegiate federation's ekiden committee. Along with Hara, Uniqlo announced that Ann Quinn , known for her success with wheelchair tennis star and People's Honor Award recipient Shingo Kunieda , has been hired as mental coach for the women's team. The Uniqlo women's team was founded in 1997. It won last October's Princess Ekiden , going on to finish 9th at the Queens Ekiden national championships in November. Shigeo Hasegawa became head coach in April this...

  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 , ...