On last Sunday, the strong Russian team won the Seoul Women’s Ekiden in 2:18:06. As the winning margin of 3 minutes 18 seconds over Japan indicates, the Russians completely dominated this ekiden over the seven-stage 42.195Km course.
In fact the Russian team dominated thisekiden during the last nine editions, winning each time.
Although most of the international women’s ekiden like Yokohama, Chiba and Beijing are contested over six-stage 42.195Km course, Seoul International Women’s Ekiden is contested over 7 stages of 6Km, 6Km, 8Km, 7Km, 5Km, 6Km and 4.195Km.
The course record is still held by the Chinese national team ('Ma’s army') who in 1993 recorded an amazing 2:13:14 and annihilated the competitions including the defending champions Kenya who won in the inaugural year, 1992.
The race started slow because most of the first stage was hampered with head wind, the Russians took the lead early and they never looked back.
After the lead pack passed 5Km (of 6Km stage) in a slow 17:01, over the uphill portion of the course, Anastasiya Zubova of Russian surged into the lead. Although the Korean team was able to stay with the Russian for a little while, Akane Otsuka of Japan was left behind in the third place.
Around 5.6Km into the race during the downhill part of the course, Otsuka was able to catch the Korean to move into second. At the first hand-off point, Zubova had 8 seconds lead over Otsuka of Japan.
The order stayed the same throughout the rest of the race. The second stage runner for Russia, Galina Aleksandrova further increased Russian’s lead and at the end of the second stage, 12Km into the race, Aleksandrova gave her team 48 seconds lead over Japan.
With each stage Russian increased their lead and by the end of the third stage, 20Km into the race, Alla Zhilyayeva put her team in commanding lead of 2 minutes and 13 seconds over Japan.
The only significant changes in positions was taking place behind Russia and Japan. After the first stage, Korea was in third followed by Poland and the combined West Japan corporate team.
In the second stage Makiko Kawashima of combined West Japan corporate team moved her team up to third place only five seconds behind Japan whose second stage runner was her twin sister Akiko Kawashima. Although 5Km into the 8Km third stage Romania moved into third and held that position for the next two stages, in the fifth stage the combined West Japan corporate team reclaimed the third place, which they kept until the finish.
Meanwhile the Russian continued to increased their lead over the second place Japan to 2 minutes 47 seconds after stage four, 3 minutes 9 seconds after stage five and 3 minutes 15 seconds after stage six.
Among the Japanese only Rie Matsuoka who ran the seventh and final stage (4.195Km) did manage to keep the loss (of ground) to a minimum. Matsuoka who said, “Because 4Km was too short, I felt little uncomfortable. The race was over so fast,” only lost 3 seconds to Russain anchor, Yelena Sidorchenkova.
“I will start training for Paris in May. It may be difficult to win (in Paris), but I would like to train for it with the gold medal in mind,” concluded Matsuoka who is selected to run the marathon in Paris.
Report by Ken Nakamura for the IAAF - Race info from Akihiro Onishi
