video of Japanese high school ekiden championships

Sugoi ne.

Domo, Bretto-san!

Hey, thanks for this. Wish we had something like this in the states. Do they only do relays like this in high school?

Thats flippin cool. Im in high school in oregon I wish we had something like that.

Thanks for sharing Brett! That's cool!

why is it that it seems that ALL of these guys are built and are smooth like Ritz?

amazing

halliburton wrote:

why is it that it seems that ALL of these guys are built and are smooth like Ritz?

The announcers said at one point that Saku Chosei, the school which won the boys' race, ran up to 50 km (~30 miles) a day at their training camp for nationals.....

What distances did they run? The girls time of 1:07+ might indicate 20km?

Not sure we need this for HSers, but would love to see a National post-collegiate, corporate-sponsored Ediken series.

Toyota has a corporate Ekiden program where the Toyota plants nationwide compete against each other for the opportunity to have their plant compete in Japan. It was canceled this year due to budgets and what not.

How good these runners are? why no US scholarships?

If any college coach could get ahold of some of that talent...

To people that read Japanese....link more running videos from that site.

yeah i always wondered as well why a few of the top runners NEVER come to the US for university. One would think at least some throughout history would have.

Too much pride for their own country.

RedGArunner. wrote:

To people that read Japanese....link more running videos from that site.

On my blog Japan Running News I have a schedule and links for watching race broadcasts live online. There is usually at least one a week from October through March.

I also put up reports on the two high school races with individual stage times, links to complete results, etc.

Boys race:

Girls race:

As to why Japanese runners don't go to univ. in the States, that's an excellent question with a lot of factors involved in the answer. The existence of a highly developed university system which feeds into a highly developed professional system is a big part of it.

At least for the men, too, a major factor is that all the high school runners want to go to universities which will get into the Hakone Ekiden. Nothing means more to them than Hakone. If you have six or seven hours to spare on the mornings of Jan. 2 and 3 (Japan time) you can watch Hakone online for free.

Awesome..thanks for the info

For most top tier Japanese high school middle distance (and up) runners, coming to USA to compete would be a step down. Most of the schools in HS boys ekiden had 5 or more sub 15:00 5k runners; many had 7 to 10. Same for the girls under 10:00 for 3k. No NCAA Div 3 school could come close to that; the NCAA Div 3 cross country champs would be dead last in this race. Maybe a few Division 2 would place higher.

Second, being a foreign student is tough. You must be one smart cookie, with a devotion to study to overcome the language barrier. It is hard to be a student-athlete in the US unless English was your native language and you have academic inclinations. In Japan, all an athlete has to do to graduate from college is train and visit the classroom from time to time.

Third, try the question this way: Why do so few American college runners go to Kenya or Ethiopia or Romania to get a college degree?

The boys race has always been the full marathon , and the girls the half I believe. In reality these times could put a substantial number of division 1 teams down as well. It seems that the top teams have always produced 28 XX 10 km runners. (not including the africans) The "aerobic house" that these guys have maintained since primary school probably goes beyond what the north american scene has justified acceptable.

I know that in '95/96?? the hammamatsu team that came second overall was lead by a Furuta- san . I believe he got the bronze medal at the World jr. Champs in the 10km the same year(28:3X)but it was widely acknowledged his ekiden performance was much more impressive.Unfortunately the 1st team included an African that ran 27:13 track 10km that year. Every year there are 3 or 4 that are competing at this level(japanese) and many...many at 29 XX level.. pile that with the 27 minute African runners and ...yeah ..pretty sick.

Thanks for the vid

Brett in Tokyo wrote:

On my blog Japan Running News I have a schedule and links for watching race broadcasts live online. There is usually at least one a week from October through March.

I also put up reports

And you take requests for cross-country-skiing pics! ;)

Dead last? how fast were those guys running? I think you underestimate Div.3