Skip to main content

Hakone Ekiden Entry Lists and Rankings

by Brett Larner

The KGRR, organizers of the Hakone Ekiden, have released the 16-member entry lists for the 21 university teams running the 92nd edition of Japan's biggest sports event on January 2 and 3.  For the first time ever JRN has made the complete entry lists available in English, with name, class year, 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon bests for all 334 athletes in the field and top ten average 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon times for all 21 teams.  Click any listing below to enlarge.

With the Hakone Ekiden's ten stages averaging 21.71 km each, half marathon times are the most relevant to a team's performance.  Teams are listed below in order of the average half marathon PB of their ten fastest men.  In some cases half marathon PBs are extrapolated from 20 km times.  The averages for Yamanashi Gakuin University and Nihon University, both of which have two Kenyan members apiece, include the times of only their faster Kenyan as only one can run Hakone.

JRN will publish its annual detailed Hakone preview closer to the end of the month, but a quick analysis breaks the field into four clear groups:
  • One group of four possible winners, or rather of three universities hoping to take down defending champion and heavy favorite Aoyama Gakuin University which has a spectacular ten-man half marathon average of 1:02:36.
  • A second group of five universities with a lock on making the ten-deep seeded bracket and which will be shooting to make the top five.
  • A group of six schools in range of taking 10th, the last seeded place for the 2017 Hakone Ekiden.
  • A final group of six also-rans including the debuting Tokyo Kokusai University and the Kanto Region Student Alliance Team made up of high-placing individuals at October's Hakone Ekiden Qualifier whose schools did not make the cut.  Among them, Jobu University has only entered 14 runners instead of the full allowance of ten starters and six alternates.
Six universities in the field have 10-man 5000 m averages under 14:00, four have 10000 m averages under 29:00, and two have half marathon averages under 1:03:00.  Only Aoyama Gakuin hits all three categories.  The quality of the race up front and the density of teams in contention for the last seeded position promise another spectacular year.  Look for detailed pre-Hakone coverage on JRN in the weeks to come and for live coverage throughout the race on @JRNLive.


©2015 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
That must have been a huge amount of work! A huge otsukaresama deshita :) I hope to get out along the course and cheer this year.
December 16, 2015 at 5:03 AM
Brett Larner said…
Thanks, it was. I'm indebted to the fantastic Mattari Ekiden site for help with tracking down many of the lesser-known runners' PBs. A highly recommended site for anyone who can read Japanese: http://sat-ekiden.info/
Also helpful was the searchable ARRS database site: http://more.arrs.net/
December 16, 2015 at 8:22 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis
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