However this season KGU seems to be prefer it’s going by the identical type of development that AGU did, scoring wins at each Izumo and Nationals, and coming in to Hakone with the strongest staff on paper. A win can be not solely its first however would make it the sixth college, alongside Komazawa, AGU, Daito Bunka College, Juntendo College and Waseda College, to win all three ekidens in a single season. What are its probabilities? On paper it is one of the best all-around staff. It has 9 stable half marathoners led by 4th-year Ayumu Yamamoto and Osaka Marathon winner Kiyoto Hirabayashi, and with 2nd-years Kosei Atomura and Hiromichi Nonaka each at 28:30 or higher for 10000 m it has sufficient folks to subject a superb staff. And the momentum to make it occur. If there’s any crack in its armor it is perhaps an absence of depth in alternates if any of its large names aren’t on.
AGU is nearly even, with higher common 5000 m and 10000 m bests and 10 good half marathoners. It would not have the identical front-end power as KGU, 4th-year Hiroki Wakabayashi being its quickest at 1:01:25, however with 3 males underneath 28 minutes for 10000 m and other people like 4th-year Akimu Nomura, 13:33.88 for 5000 m, in reserve it is fairly laborious to see AGU faltering. And possibly greater than some other college besides Teikyo College, coach Hara actually brings all the pieces to Hakone. AGU’s sum there may be at all times larger than no matter it is finished within the different elements of the season.
Komazawa is essentially the most completed staff over the half marathon distance, with a 10-man common of 1:02:01 led by captain Kotaro Shinohara, the fastest-ever Japanese-born collegiate half marathoner at 1:00:11. Below new head coach Atsushi Fujita Komazawa actually centered on the half marathon this season, that means that quite a lot of its folks do not have 10000 m bests according to their precise capability. In that manner Komazawa’s rating would not replicate the place it is actually at. Quite a bit will rely upon how its 2 greatest non-half marathoners, Keita Sato and Shunsuke Kuwata, do, Third-year Sato having missed Izumo and Nationals as he recovered from an damage earlier within the 12 months and 1st-year Kuwata stable on the monitor however missing at Nationals.
Waseda apart, the following tier of faculties might be attempting to knock Chuo and others off the rostrum. Teikyo and Hosei College have a historical past of outperforming what they seem like on paper, with head coaches Takayuki Nakano and Tomoo Tsubota each excelling at peaking for Hakone like AGU’s Hara. #15-ranked Nittai College was good on the Yosenkai qualifier, ending 4th, however each Tokyo Kokusai College and Juntendo College had been manner under their rankings, TKU simply eighth and Juntendo squeezing by by 1 second in tenth.
Ranked solely 18th and nineteenth, Rikkyo College and Senshu College went 1-2 on the Yosenkai. Circumstances had been scorching there, so that may not translate to success at Hakone. However Rikkyo making the highest 10 for the primary time since 1962 in Komazawa grad Yusuke Takabayashi‘s first season as head coach can be an enormous second, and likewise for 1939 Hakone winner Senshu, which solely has 2 high 10 finishes within the final 30 years.
Hakone is at all times one of the best street racing of the 12 months, actually extra the spotlight of the 2024 season than the beginning of the 2025 season. Here is to a different stellar race in its one hundred and first version, no matter occurs.
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