We’re saddened to announce that Sena Minawatari, a part of our crew for final yr’s Hakone Ekiden and this season’s Nationwide College Ekiden, has handed away. He was an indispensable a part of our crew, and we wish specific our deepest gratitude and respect for his ardour and the achievements it produced. We really feel grief and loss at this sudden departure, and we are going to carry the reminiscences now we have with him in our hearts as we proceed to maneuver ahead. He fought this sickness till the very finish, and we ask that his reminiscence be appeared upon with heat of coronary heart. Our heartfelt condolences. — Aoyama Gakuin College Monitor and Discipline
Aoyama Gakuin head coach Susumu Hara, 57, and different crew employees discovered of Minawatari’s demise on the night of the nineteenth. The following morning Hara conveyed the information to the athletes and different crew employees at their morning coaching session. Hara mourned Minawatari’s loss, saying, “It was too quickly.”
With a vivid and constructive persona, Minawatari was a key a part of the Aoyama Gakuin crew chemistry. Final yr as a 2nd-year he was one of many 16 athletes on Aoyama Gakuin’s entry roster for the a centesimal Hakone Ekiden. Scheduled to run the Seventh Stage, he was swapped out for a substitute on race morning and didn’t run. However as a extremely proficient athlete Hara had excessive hopes for him, telling him, “You may be a key a part of our Day Two lineup subsequent yr on the a hundred and first.”
Instantly after Hakone final yr, Hara persuaded him to run the Kumanichi 30 km Highway Race at the beginning of February, a race that high-potential athletes from Aoyama Gakuin run yearly. “Anybody who runs nicely at Kumanichi does nicely at Hakone the subsequent yr,” Hara advised him. “Put me in!” Minawatari instantly replied with an enormous smile. “30 km is a good distance, however I am going to do my finest!” He lived as much as these phrases, working 1:33:35 for seventh in his debut on the distance.
From there Minwatari was on a gentle progress curve from the beginning of his Third yr in April final yr. In June he ran a 5000 m PB of 13:51.38, and his summer time coaching went nicely sufficient that he was placed on the entry roster for the Nov. 3 Nationwide College Ekiden. However shortly after that he began feeling unwell and left the crew dormitory to be hospitalized. Simply over 2 weeks after Aoyama Gakuin’s win on the a hundred and first Hakone Ekiden this yr, he revealed his analysis on his social media.
Titling his submit, “Even with most cancers I am aiming for Hakone,” Minawatari wrote, “I used to be identified with malignant lymphoma in November and am at present present process remedy for it.” Expressing his sturdy will to get better, he wrote, “I need to preserve an entire document of this course of, from the way it began rehabilitation goes, and share it with others. I need to share the positives I am taking from this and the way it’s serving to me develop as an individual.”
Hara included Minwatari remotely in a crew assembly on the finish of December proper earlier than Hakone. “He sat in on the assembly on-line from his hospital room,” Hara mentioned. “He advised the remainder of the crew, ‘Do not ever take the truth that you may run with no consideration. Good luck on the Hakone Ekiden.’ We must always have been those giving him our help, however he was the one giving it to us. There isn’t a query that it was his energy that drove us to win.”
Coach Hara had referred to as Aoyama Gakuin’s race plan for its title protection try at Hakone this yr “Operation We Need to See You Once more.” The crew had hoped to reunite and share their pleasure with Minawatari after Hakone, however after Minawatari publicly revealed his sickness in mid-January Hara advised the crew, “Our race plan isn’t full till Minawatari is again with us and feeling good once more.” Sadly that hope didn’t come to be.
2025-26 crew captain Asahi Kuroda discovered of Minawatari’s demise on the twentieth with the remainder of the crew, and because the solely factor he may do he went forward along with his final observe exercise forward of his marathon debut at this weekend’s Osaka Marathon. Osaka was Minawatari’s hometown, and Kuroda will give all the pieces in his reminiscence.
“Final October once I put collectively the entry roster for the Nationwide College Ekiden he was one in every of Aoyama Gakuin College’s finest 16,” mentioned Hara. “He was a candidate to be one in every of our beginning members at Hakone this yr. He mentioned, ‘Even when I’ve acquired most cancers, I am nonetheless aiming for Hakone,’ and the entire crew had his again. I believed that even when there wasn’t sufficient time to do it in his 4th yr, it might be doable in a fifth yr, or sixth yr. It is an important loss. It was too quickly.”
Sena Minawatari – 2 Feb. 2004 – 19 Feb. 2025. Born in Toyonaka, Osaka. 178 cm, 60 kg. Joined Aoyama Gakuin College after graduating from Kandai Hokuyo H.S. in 2022. Entry member of Aoyama Gakuin’s successful crew at a centesimal Hakone Ekiden his 2nd yr. PBs:
5000 m: 13:51.38
10000 m: 28:49.30
half marathon: 1:03:30
30 km: 1:33:35
translated and edited by Brett Larner
