Skip to main content

Shitaraless Honda Wins East Japan Corporate Ekiden

Qualification for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships got underway on the Nov. 3 holiday in Japan's most competitive region, East Japan, with the 58th East Japan Corporate Men's Ekiden Championships. Running without half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara, 2015 winner Honda returned to the top with an exciting anchor stage win in 3:47:55 for the 7-stage, 77.5 km course.

The Hitachi Butsuryu team's leading man Yuki Muta got them off to a good start on the opening stage, but a 1-2 punch from DeNA's Kenta Murozuka and Bedan Karoki put DeNA 20 seconds ahead of the early leaders. 7th on the First Stage, Honda worked its way up to 3rd by the end of the Third Stage just a second behind Hitachi Butsuryu.

Honda moved into 2nd on the next stage, but its gap to leader DeNA stayed steady at 21 seconds. Fujitsu passed Hitachi Butsuryu for 3rd thanks to a stage win from Ken Yokote, and a new stage record of 22:52 for the 7.8 km Fifth Stage from Yusuke Sato put Fujitsu ahead of Honda and 21 seconds behind DeNA. In his debut with the Hitachi Butsuryu team Keita Shitara, twin brother of Honda's Shitara, also broke the Fifth Stage to keep hold of 4th, a solid performance ahead of his marathon debut in Fukuoka next month.


Hitachi Butsuryu's Toshiyuki Yanagi followed Shitara with the fastest time on the Sixth Stage, passing all three teams ahead of him and returning Hitachi Butsuryu to 1st with one stage to go and a 3-second lead over Honda. With just 32 seconds separating the top four the 13.5 km anchor stage was bound to be close, and a 40:27 from Yuki Matsumura was enough to put Honda ahead and into the winner's position. Fujitsu moved back into 2nd, DeNA taking 3rd and Hitachi Butsuryu dropping back to 4th. A stage win from Tomohiro Tanigawa brought the Konica Minolta team within 9 seconds of Hitachi Butsuryu but was only enough to put the past national championships 5th.

Back at the cutoff for New Year Ekiden qualification, past regulars Komori Corporation and JR Higashi Nihon fell out of the bracket, caught by the Police Headquarters, which put ten officers under 30 minutes at last month's Takashimadaira 10 km, and the Sunbelx supermarket team, which runs an entertaining advertising campaign featuring its Kenyan ace Ezekiel Cheboitibin hawking the week's specials to the Japanese public. They and the eleven more mainstream teams ahead of them now head into prep for the raison d'être for the entire corporate team system, the New Year Ekiden national championships.

58th East Japan Corporate Men's Ekiden Championships

Kumagaya, Saitama, 11/3/17
25 teams, 7 stages, 77.5 km
click here for complete results

Top Team Results - top 13 qualify for New Year Ekiden
1. Honda - 3:47:55
2. Fujitsu - 3:48:42
3. DeNA - 3:48:51
4. Hitachi Butsuryu - 3:49:10
5. Konica Minolta - 3:49:19
6. Nissin Shokuhin - 3:49:46
7. Yachiyo Kogyo - 3:50:02
8. Kanebo - 3:50:51
9. Yakult - 3:52:26
10. Subaru - 3:52:29
11. Press Kogyo - 3:54:07
12. Police Headquarters - 3:54:13
13. Sunbelx - 3:54:14
14. Komori Corporation - 3:54:46
15. JR Higashi Nihon - 3:55:19

Top Individual Stage Performances
First Stage (11.6 km) - Yuki Muta (Hitachi Butsuryu) - 34:09
Second Stage (15.3 km) - Kenta Murozauka (DeNA) - 45:08
Third Stage (9.2 km) - Bidan Karoki (DeNA) - 25:33
Fourth Stage (9.5 km) - Ken Yokote (Fujitsu) - 28:06
Fifth Stage (7.8 km) - Yusuke Sato (Fujitsu) - 22:52 - CR
Sixth Stage (10.6 km) - Toshiyuki Yanagi (Hitachi Butsuryu) - 30:16
Seventh Stage (13.5 km) - Tomohiro Tanigawa (Konica Minolta) - 40:22

© 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

World Championships Medalist Racewalking Coach Mizuho Sakai Recognized With Highest Coaching Honor

The 2023 Mizuno Sports Mentor Awards recognizing excellence in coaching were held Apr. 23 in Tokyo. Toyo University assistant coach and race walking coach Mizuho Sakai was given a gold award, the program's highest honor, and expressed her thanks and joy in a speech at the award ceremony. The coach of 2023 Budapest World Championships men's 35 km race walk bronze medalist Masatora Kawano , Sakai said, "This is an incredible honor and I'm truly grateful. As a child I wanted to be in the sporting world and I've spent my life in that world. My end goal was always to play a supporting role for other athletes, so I'm honored to be recognized in this way." Sakai's husband Toshiyuki Sakai , head coach of Toyo's three-time Hakone Ekiden champion team, attended the awards gala with her and was also introduced to the audience. After bowing he took a seat in front of her and watched with warmth as she received recognition for her outstanding work. The Mizun
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ivy League at the Izumo Ekiden in Review

Last week I was contacted by Will Geiken , who I'd met years ago when he was a part of the Ivy League Select Team at the Izumo Ekiden . He was looking for historical results from Izumo and lists of past team members, and I was able to put together a pretty much complete history, only missing the alternates from 1998 to 2010 and a little shaky on the reverse transliterations of some of the names from katakana back into the Western alphabet for the same years. Feel free to send corrections or additions to alternate lists. It's interesting to go back and see some names that went on to be familiar, to see the people who made an impact like Princeton's Paul Morrison , Cornell's Max King , Stanford's Brendan Gregg in one of the years the team opened up beyond the Ivy League, Cornell's Ben de Haan , Princeton's Matt McDonald , and Harvard's Hugo Milner last year, and some of the people who struggled with the format. 1998 Team: 15th of 21 overall, 2:14:10 (43
Post a Comment
Read more

Hirabayashi Runs PB at Shanghai Half, WR Holder Nakata Dominates Fuji Five Lakes - Weekend Road Roundup

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half
Post a Comment
Read more