Skip to main content

Ritsumeikan University Wins Record-Setting Seventh National Title

http://mainichi.jp/sports/news/20121029k0000m050036000c.html

translated by Brett Larner

With 28 teams on the starting line for the six-stage, 38.6 km National University Women's Ekiden Championships on Oct. 28 in Sendai, defending national champion Ritsumeikan University celebrated the championships' 30th anniversary by running 2:06:05 to take a record-setting seventh national title.  Rival Bukkyo University was relegated to the runner-up position for the second-straight year, 1:05 behind Ritsumeikan, while Tsubuka University was 3rd in its first Nationals appearance in nine years, making the seeded top six for the first time in ten years.

Ritsumeikan sat in 4th at the end of the First Stage, 13 seconds behind the lead before junior Akane Yabushita took over with a stage-best run to put Ritsumeikan into the lead.  The team sustained the lead through the Third Stage and was unchallenged all the way to the finish.  After starting the Second Stage in the lead. Bukkyo senior Shiho Takechi fell behind late in the stage.  Her teammates were unable to make up the deficit on the remaining stages.  Osaka Gakuin University and, returning from a DNF last year, Daito Bunka University, made it into the seeded bracket for the first time, while five-year-straight 3rd-placer Meijo University was only 7th, its first time ever not earning a seeded spot.

Pre-race, Ritsumeikan coach Miyuki Tokura had predicted, "The Second Stage, with the highest concentration of fast runners, will be the key."  After having been mostly out of competition since January with knee problems, captain Yabushita's performance on the Second Stage was crucial to the team's win.  Yabushita, whose credentials include a 2nd-place finish in the 1500 m at last year's National Track and Field Championships, was nervous about racing, saying, "I didn't really know how far I had recovered my strength yet."  With a 13-second gap to Bukkyo rival Takechi, Yabushita took the lead with 700 m to go before the handoff and opened an 8-second lead, winning the stage for the third year in a row.  Yabushita passed on her momentum to Third Stage runner Mai Tsuda who likewise won her stage to all but seal the overall win for Ritsumeikan.

With four-time Nationals team members Hanae Tanaka (Team Daiichi Seimei), Risa Takenaka (Team Shiseido) and others having graduated last spring, Ritsumeikan's strength this year was to be found among its sophomores and juniors.  A month ago at the Kansai Regional University Ekiden Championships with Yabushita still injured and Tsuda suffering from fatigue Ritsumeikan was crushed by Bukkyo, finishing an all-but unthinkable 4th.  "Everybody was nervous going into that race," said Yabushita, "but what happened there got us all focused and ready to come here and win."  Having worked together to overcome their problems, all members of this year's winning team will return next year.  Another era of the Ritsumeikan dynasty may be just getting underway.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

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

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

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