Skip to main content

A Quick Guide to National Championship Ekiden Season

by Brett Larner

This Sunday kicks off the busiest part of the year on the Japanese racing calendar, the national championship ekiden season.  At all levels from junior high school to the jitsugyodan corporate league, the national championship ekiden road relays are the main event for Japanese distance runners and the most dramatic racing of the year, with all but the National Junior High School Ekiden Championships broadcast live nationwide to large-scale audiences and viewable overseas through the miracle of Keyhole TV.  A quick guide to the most important of them:

Dec. 18: National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships, Sendai - 6 stages, 42.195 km

The decision was already made to move the National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships to Sendai well before March's disasters, and this weekend's race will be the first major event held in the city since then.  In memory of the victims of the disasters the corporate league expanded the field this year to allow any corporate team that could break 2:30 in a six-stage, 42.195 regional qualifier into the Championships rather than setting a fixed number of places as per the norm.  The result is the deepest field in the history of the event.  All five members of Japan's marathon squad at the Daegu World Championships are on their corporate teams' entry lists, as are Japan's two best hopes for the London Olympics marathon, national record holder Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex) and half-marathon national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal).

Dec. 18: National Junior High School Ekiden Championships, Yamaguchi - girls: 5 stages, 12.0 km, boys: 6 stages, 18.0 km

For better or worse distance running in Japan gets serious even in junior high school, and the National Championships ekiden is more than a little competitive.  No stages in either the boys' or girls' races are longer than 3.0 km, making for fast-paced races.

Dec. 25: National High School Ekiden Championships, Kyoto - girls: 5 stages, 21.0975 km, boys: 7 stages, 42.195 km

Both the girls' and boys' races at the National High School Ekiden Championships are broadcast nationwide live and commercial-free in their entirety, something that seems unthinkable anywhere else in the world.  Both races offer glimpses of future talent; this was the race where Samuel Wanjiru's name first came to widespread attention after he set a still-standing stage record in 2004.  This year both Wanjiru's stage record and the overall team course record he helped Sendai Ikuei H.S. set that year are under threat from Sera H.S.'s Charles Ndirangu and Sendai Ikuei's current lineup, which looks set to be its strongest since the Wanjiru era despite the devastation of its training grounds in March's tsunami.

Jan. 1: New Year Ekiden - National Corporate Men's Ekiden Championships, Gunma - 7 stages, 100.0 km

Getting up early New Year's Day to watch the New Year Ekiden has become a national tradition.  With the high viewership ratings for the live broadcast, more than the marathon in modern times the New Year Ekiden is the reason corporate men's teams exist, the event around which the whole year revolves for professional Japanese men.  It's also the reason most of the African elites in Japan are here.  10000 m world champion Ibrahim Jeilan will be in the race, leading Team Honda in a bid to take down injury-plagued defending champion Team Toyota.

Jan. 2-3: Hakone Ekiden - Kanto Regional University Men's Ekiden Championships, Tokyo/Kanagawa - 10 stages, 217.9 km

The oldest and biggest of them, the Hakone Ekiden is one of the world's greatest races.  Only a regional university men's event for the Kanto area, it nevertheless pulls in 30% nationwide viewership ratings for the two-day, ~15 hr. broadcast.  And for good reason.  You won't find more compelling racing anywhere.  This year looks as though it may surpass last year's record-setting battle between Waseda University and Toyo University, as 3rd-place Komazawa University returns with a team stronger on paper than either Waseda's or Toyo's squads.  The 2012 edition also marks the last run for Hakone's most famous star, Toyo senior and uphill Fifth Stage record holder Ryuji Kashiwabara.

Jan. 15: National Women's Ekiden Championships, Kyoto - 9 stages, 42.195 km

Along with the following week's men's race, the National Women's Ekiden Championships is one of the most interesting races on the calendar, with teams from each of Japan's prefectures made up of junior high, high school, university and professional runners.  With a commercial-free broadcast it's one of the few chances to see runners from different levels competing against each other, with the best high schoolers and university runners going up against Olympians.

Jan. 22: National Men's Ekiden Championships, Hiroshima - 7 stages, 48.0 km

Likewise for the National Men's Ekiden Championships.  The best Kanto-region university men these days are at least as good as the best of the corporate leagues over shorter distances, so it's always exciting to see the big guns from the New Year Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden face off three weeks later.  In the last few years the National Men's Ekiden Championships has also been the coming-of-age party for several future stars, most memorably an unknown high schooler named Ryuji Kashiwabara at the 2008 race.  Also broadcast commercial-free.

Following the Jan. 15 and 22 races are a smattering of other small but high-level ekidens including the Kita-Kyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden, the Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden and the Meigi Ekiden, but for most athletes the focus shifts to the February-March domestic marathon and half marathon season, including the Osaka International Women's Marathon, the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, the Nobeoka Nishi Nihon Marathon, the Tokyo Marathon, the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon, the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon, the Tachikawa Akishima Half Marathon, the Matsue Ladies Half Marathon, and the men's and women's National Corporate Half Marathon Championships.

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

dadsweb said…
I think the National Women's University Ekiden held in Sendai in October counts as a major event.

Do you know when they finalize who is running which leg? I'd like to see Noguchi run, but aren't sure which leg she'll run...
Brett Larner said…
Agreed, and likewise for the National University Men's Ekiden in November, Izumo and Chiba, but I was just focusing on upcoming races at this point. They did used to have a National University Women's Invitational Ekiden in December but it was suspended last year and I haven't seen that they are re-starting it this year, unfortunately.

Start lists should be up pretty soon for this weekend. I imagine they'll put Noguchi on the ace stage, which I think is 10 km. Should be pretty interesting if she and Fukushi are on the same stage. Sysmex should be ahead of Wacoal at that point.
Brett Larner said…
I just did a little searching and found that the IUAU did have the University Women's Invitational on the schedule but that in October they announced it had been cancelled again, unfortunately.

Most-Read This Week

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr