Skip to main content

Tokyo Nogyo University Wins Inaugural Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden

by Brett Larner

The men's Big Three University Ekidens, the Izumo Ekiden, National University Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden, are some of Japan's most popular sports events, their live nationwide broadcasts drawing tens of millions of viewers.  By comparison, the university women's ekiden season lags behind, down at one point to just October's Morinomiyako National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai but back up to two in the 2013-14 year with the relaunch of the discontinued National University Women's Invitational Ekiden on a new course as the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden.  This season a completely new event, the one-way massively uphill Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden, brings things up to parity.

In a way.  In profile the Nikko Irohazaka course is almost identical to that of Hakone's most famous stage, the Fifth Stage, with 875 m of non-stop climb over 23.4 km, the steepest section coming just after halfway before flattening out and dropping in the final kilometers.  But where university men handle that stage on their own, the Nikko Irohazaka course is split into six stages from 3.0 to 5.2 km.

The disparity aside, the new race makes for an unusual but welcome addition to the calendar.  14 teams were entered for the first running, Tokyo Nogyo University fielding two squads and both Saitama University and Tokyo University putting in alumni teams rather than current students.  Most schools were based in Kanto, the exceptions including Kansai region Osaka Geidai University and Kansai Gaikokugo University giving the event some claim to its ambitions to be a national race. 

Top-ranked Kanto school Daito Bunka University's team included some of its best women like Shiho Yahagi, Mari Tayama and Eri Utsunomiya, but with a strong leadoff from ace Maya Iino, Tokyo Nogyo's A-team got off to a lead that never broke.  Iino covered the 4.7 km First Stage 25 seconds faster than Kansai Gaikokugo's Saki Tokoro and 35 seconds faster than DBU's Utsunomiya, and with another stage win from second runner Manaka Kobori and all four of its remaining women making the top two on their stages TNU was never in any danger.  Anchor Ruka Nakamura ran her 3.5 km stage 19 seconds faster than anyone else on the same leg to bring TNU home in 1:30:21, the benchmark time for future years.

One of the things that makes Hakone's Fifth Stage so exciting to watch is the unpredictable effect of the tough climb on runners, and while the shorter stages reduced that effect in Nikko the impact was still there to be seen.  DBU see-sawed between 2nd and 5th from stage to stage, needing a solid run from anchor Atsumi Miyamoto to move up from 4th to 2nd in 1:32:43.  Miyamoto overtook Osaka Geidai's Miku Kutsuwada just before the end of the stage, Kutsuwada ending up 10 seconds back in 3rd in 1:32:53.  Kansai Gaikokugo University also handled itself well, taking 4th in 1:33:15 almost a minute and a half ahead of the best of the rest of the Kanto schools, 5th place Chuo University.

Building up the kind of popularity that Hakone has is almost an impossibility, but with a short-course format featuring heavy turnover as a major part of the racing the Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden could catch on quickly with fans and athletes alike.  With any luck next year's second running will feature perpetual national champion Ritsumeikan University and some of the other teams from the highly competitive western Japan.

1st Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden
Nikko, Tochigi, 11/30/14
14 teams, 6 stages, 23.4 km, 875 m climb
click here for complete results

Team Results
1. Tokyo Nogyo University A - 1:30:21
2. Daito Bunka University - 1:32:43
3. Osaka Geidai University - 1:32:53
4. Kansai Gaikokugo University - 1:33:15
5. Chuo University - 1:34:44
6. Toyo University - 1:37:18
7. Tokyo Nogyo University B - 1:38:12
8. Rikkyo University - 1:39:09
9. Kokushikan University - 1:39:20
10. Shoin University - 1:39:42
11. Tokyo Gakugei University - 1:40:08
12. Seitoku University - 1:42:41
13. Saitama University Alumni - 1:47:54
14. Tokyo University Alumni - 1:56:46

Stage Best Performances
First Stage (4.7 km, ~100 m ascent)
Maya Iino (Tokyo Nogyo Univ. A) - 16:45

Second Stage (5.2 km, ~200 m ascent)
Monami Ichimura (Chuo Univ.) - 18:49
Manaka Kobori (Tokyo Nogyo Univ. A) - 18:49

Third Stage (3.5 km, ~100 m ascent)
Kanami Koshimizu (Kansai Gaikokugo Univ.) - 14:54

Fourth Stage (3.0 km, ~100 m ascent)
Mari Tayama (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 13:05

Fifth Stage (3.5 km, ~400 m ascent)
Aya Higashimoto (Osaka Geidai Univ.) - 14:11

Sixth Stage (3.5 km, ~25 m descent)
Ruka Nakamura (Tokyo Nogyo Univ. A) - 11:53

(c) 2014 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

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