Kyoto squad, the winners at the Inter-Prefectural Women's Ekiden in Kyoto (© Ken Nakamura)
yearhistory and for the third straight year, Kyoto prefecture took a home win in the Inter-Prefectural Women’s Ekiden Championships which was held in Kyoto, Japan, today.
Kyoto’s winning time was not particularly fast, 2:17:03, but the race with many lead changes, were exciting from the spectators’ point of view. The winner’s squad was made up of young runners, eight out of the nine members being students, and they were given advice and encouragement from members of the two previous winning Kyoto sides.
The battle for the second place was fierce. Okayama prefecture and Hyogo prefecture battled all the way to the finish line in the stadium and were given the same finishing time 2:17:14. At the end Okayama prevailed by the slimmest of margins.
The Ekiden was contested over the 9 stage-course (6Km, 4Km, 3Km, 4Km, 4.1075Km, 4.0875Km, 4Km, 3Km, 10Km) over the marathon distance which starts and finishes in Nishi-Kyogoku stadium. This Ekiden brings together runners from different generations. The rule of this Ekiden calls for minimum of four runners born between April 2, 1988 and April 1, 1991, and minimum of three runners born between April 2, 1991 and April 1, 1993.
How the race unfolded
Stage One - Mari Ozaki, who is preparing for the upcoming Osaka Ladies Marathon, surged at 4Km to break the race open. However, Megumi Seike and Yoko Miyauchi was able to stay close and with 200m to go in the stage, Seike, a team-mate of the reigning Olympic marathon champion Mizuki Noguchi at Sysmex, sprinted away. Seike who later commented “Since race was slow, I was planning to win the stage by sprinting at the end,” covered 6Km course in 19:32.
Stage Two - Yuriko Kobayashi of Hyogo prefecture, the bronze medallist at 1500m in the World Junior Championships in Beijing, started the second stage in seventh place, 9 seconds behind the leader. She quickly made up the distance and by 2.3Km into the second stage, Kobayashi took over the lead. She covered the 4Km course in 12:22, four seconds short of the stage record, which she set last year. After the race Kobayashi said, “I like to thank Mari Ozaki for being so close to the leader at the end of stage one. Because of it, I was able to take over the lead. However, since I was not chasing anybody in the second half of the race, the final time suffered.” Meanwhile Tomomi Yuda, who was the second fastest (12:30) in the stage, passed 29 runners in the 4Km second stage.
Stages Three, Four and Five - Hyogo prefecture stayed in front through the next two stages but in the fifth stage, Okayama and Miyazaki prefectures started to close the gap. Then with less than 500m remaining in the fifth stage, Okayama prefecture took over the lead, while Miyazaki prefecture moved into second. At the end of the fifth stage, Okayama led the race by one second over Miyazaki, while Hyogo was another five seconds behind.
Stages Six and Seven - The seesaw battle among Hyogo, Miyazaki and Okayama continued in the sixth and seventh stage. Meanwhile Kyoto who started in 14th place after the first stage was steadily moving up. Kyoto moved up to fourth by the fifth stage. And thanks to a brilliant run by Kazue Kojima who set the stage best, they took third and then into second in the seventh stage. Stage Eight and Nine - With 600m remaining in the eighth stage, Kyoto finally took over the lead. However, the race was not over yet. At 1.5Km into the ninth and the final stage Okayama caught Kyoto. They ran together for the next 5.5Km before Hyogo came from behind to reclaim the lead at 7Km into the final stage. Kyoto stayed close, however, and after the final hill, 1.5Km before the finish Ryoko Kizaki of Kyoto surged away from Hyogo and won by 11 seconds.
“After being caught from behind, my plan was to stay with the leader at all cost and then surge at the end. I figured the end of the uphill is the best place to surge because anyone will be tired at that point,” explained Ryoko Kizaki of her strategy. “Looking over the start list, I note that my competitors are mostly the same age as me, so I was determined to show what college runners can do.”
Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
Weather: 9C, 60% humidity
Results:
1) Kyoto 2:17:03
2) Okayama 2:17:14
3) Hyogo 2:17:14
4) Miyazaki 2:17:26
5) Gunma 2:18:10
6) Nagasaki 2:18:38
7) Saitama 2:18:55
8) Kumamoto 2:19:02
Best stages
1 6Km 19:32 Megumi Seike (Ehime)
2 4Km 12:22 Yuriko Kobayashi (Hyogo)
3 3Km 9:25 Ayuko Suzuki (Aichi)
4 4Km 12:58 Noriko Higuchi (Kyoto)
5 4.1075Km 13:14 Mariko Nakao (Miyazaki)
6 4.0875Km 12:49 Risa Takenaka (Kyoto)
7 4Km 12:21 Kazue Kojima (Kyoto) New stage record
8 3Km 10:10 Tomomi Sano (Shizuoka)
9 10Km 31:49 Chisato Osaki (Ibaragi)
