Nissin Foods wins men’s corporate Ekiden title in Maebashi

1 January 2012Prerace favourite Nissin Foods won the 2012 New Year Ekiden on Sunday (1), the seven-stage 100Km Ekiden to determine the best men’s Corporate sponsored team in Japan. The race, which this year celebrated its 56th edition, starts and finishes at the Gunma prefectural building in Maebashi, the site of 1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships.

It was the second victory in three years for Nissin Foods who also won in 2010 but finished third a year ago. Six-time champion Konica Minolta was second just like two years; after finishing ninth a year ago this was hardly a disappointment for them. The 21-time champion Asahi Kasei finished third, while defending champion Toyota was fourth.

The race started auspiciously for Nissin. After the 12.3Km first stage, Yoshihiro Wakamatsu sprinted away to give his team a two second lead.  Although Gedion Ngatuny of Nissin was only third fastest (behind two Kenyans, Edward Waweru and Paul Tanui) in stage two, Nissin kept their lead after the second stage.  In the third stage, however, Chihiro Miyawaki of Toyota and Tsuyoshi Ugachi of Konica run superbly and Nissin dropped to third. Then in the 22Km fourth stage, where the team’s big guns are entered, Yuki Sato of Nissin ran the new stage record, and turned it into a two-team race between Nissin and Konica Minolta. Then in the fifth stage, Nissin regained the lead which they never relinquished.

“It is good to win. The plan was to run aggressively,” said Teruoki Shirouzu, the coach of Nissin Foods.

“I just ran to catch the leaders and after joining the leaders I just thought about pulling ahead of them,” said Sato. “The stage record is the result of that.”

How the race unfolded:

Stage 1 (12.3Km)

The race started slow. The first Km was covered in 3:07 and the 5Km in 15:22. Of the 37 teams that started the race, 30 were still together 10Km into the stage. The real racing began with 1Km to go in the stage, and the three teams – Toyota, Nissin and Toyota Kyushu – broke away.  At the end Wakamatsu of Nissin was the fastest with 35:55.  “It was much slower than expected, so I did not know what to expect. I was under some pressure because my team is the favorite, but I have run this stage twice, so I feel comfortable running stage one,” said Wakamatsu.  

Stage 2 (8.3Km)

This is the stage reserved for African runners on the team.  At 5Km into the stage Gedion Ngatuny of Nissin Foods, fourth in the 2007 World Cross Country Championships, led the chase pack consisting of John Thuo of Toyota, Paul Tanui of Kyudenko, Patrick Mwaka of Aisan and Paul Kuira of Konica by 11 seconds. Behind them, Edward Waweru of NTN and Daniel Gitau of Fujitsu were running superbly.  At the end of second stage (20.6Km from the start), Ngatuny of Nissin led with 58:29 from Paul Tanui of Kyudenko by 8 seconds; he in turn was followed by Edward Waweru of NTN, who passed 18 runners in 8.3Km.

Stage 3 (13.6Km)

Three-and-a-half kilometres into the stage Tsuyoshi Ugachi of Konica Minolta took over the lead from Kosaku Hoshina of Nissin Foods. Although Ugachi (a 27:40 10,000m runner) is much faster than Hoshina (28:22 for 10,000m), Hoshina made a valiant effort to stay with Ugachi for a while. Meanwhile Chihiro Miyawaki (a 27:41 10,000m runner) of Toyota caught the leaders a little over 6Km into the stage. At 8Km, Ugachi surged taking Miyawaki with him, but Hoshina fell behind. Miyawaki passed 10Km point at 27:22, while Ugachi covered the same distance in 27:33.  Ugachi tried to shake off Miyawaki several times without success, but finally just before 12Km into the stage Ugachi pulled ahead.  At the end Konica with 1:36:46 was five seconds ahead of Toyota, who in turn was 36 seconds ahead of Nissin Foods. Yuki Iwai of Asahi Kasei was also superb passing 15 runners in 13.6Km.  “I pushed hard from the start, so the closing stage was quite tough,” said Miyawaki who covered the 13.6Km in 37:52 thus breaking his team mate’s (Yusuke Takabayashi scheduled to run the anchor leg) stage record (38:02).  

Stage 4 (22Km)  

Shortly into the stage, Yoshinori Oda of Toyota caught Takayuki Matsumiya (former 30Km record holder) of Konica and they ran together while Yuki Sato of Nissin was closing the gap fast.  Five Km into the stage, Oda and Matsumiya were 25 seconds ahead of Sato, but 4 Km later Sato caught the leaders. When Sato started to push the pace, Matsumiya covered his move, but Oda started to drift back.  Sato passed the 10Km check point in 27:52.  With 10Km to go into the stage, Sato broke away from Matsumiya, however, Matsumiya worked his way back to Sato’s shoulder. Meanwhile at 20Km, Horibata, who was seventh in the World Championships Marathon last year, passed Oda to move his team Asahi Kasei into third. Sato and Matsumiya run together until 600m to go when Matsumiya pulled away from Sato.  At the end Konica was seven seconds ahead of Nissin.  

Stage 5 (15.8Km)

Just past 3Km Muryo Takase of Nissin caught Konica’s Hiroshi Yamada. Three kilometres later, Takese started to pull away. At the end Nissin (3:26:34) was 31 seconds ahead of Konica. The stage best (46:16) was shared by Takase and Masato Imai. “For my team to win, I figured my stage best is the must, so I went for it,” said Takase.

Stage 6 (12.5Km)

Early in the stage Yuko Matsumiya (twin brother of Takayuki) of Konica started to close the gap on Bene Zama of Nissin. At 5Km, the gap was closed to 15 seconds. However, in the last half of the stage, Zama pulled away from Matsumiya, and at the end, Nissin was 27 seconds ahead of Konica  

Stage 7 (15.5Km)

Hideyuki Anzai of Nissin Foods extendedhis lead over Masaki Shimoju of Konica Minolta.  By 5Km, he was 51 seconds ahead of Shimoju, and the race was essentially over.

Ken Nakamura for the IAAF

Results:

1)  Nissin Foods   4:49:32

2) Konia Minolta   4:50:52

3) Asahi Kasei  4:51:16

4) Toyota Motors  4:51:33

5) Kyudenko  4:52:49

6) Yasukawa Electric 4:53:26

7) Toyota Kyushu 4:53:54

8) Honda     4:54:13

9) Chugoku Electric 4:54:56

10) Fujitsu   4:55:19

Best Stages:

1 (12.3Km) -

35:55 Yoshihiro Wakamatsu  Nissin

35:57 Yuya Konishi   Toyota Kyushu

36:00 Kenta Matsumoto  Toyota

2 (8.3Km) -

22:29 Edward Waweru  NTN

22:31 Paul Tanui   Kyudenko

22:34 Gedion Ngatuny  Nissin

22:38 Daniel Gitau   Fujitsu

22:39 Paul Kuira   Konica

3 (13.6Km)  

37:52 Chihiro Miyawaki  Toyota

37:58 Tsuyoshi Ugachi  Konica

38:18 Yuki Iwai   Asahi Kasei

38:58 Kosaku Hoshina  Nissin

4 (22.0Km)  

62:51 Yuki Sato   Nissin

63:25  Takayuki Matsumiya  Konica

63:40 Naoki Okamoto  Chugoku Electric

63:43 Hiroyuki Horibata  Asahi Kasei

63:46 Masakazu Fujiwara  Honda

5 (15.8Km)  

46:16 Muryo Takase   Nissin

46:16 Masato Imai   Toyota Kyushu

46:29 Minoru Ikebe   Honda

46:35 Satoru Sasaki   Asahi Kasei

46:37 Bunta Kuroki   Yasukawa

6 (12.5Km)  

36:35 Kazuharu Takai   Kyudenko

36:53 Minato Oishi   Toyota

36:57 Yuko Matsumiya  Konica

37:01 Bene Zama   Nissin

37:02 Takehiro Arakawa  Asahi Kasei

7 (15.5Km)  

45:16 Yusuke Takabayashi  Toyota

45:47 Kazuya Deguchi  Asahi Kasei

45:51 Masayuki Obata   Yasukawa

45:56 Tomoya Shirayanagi  Toyota Boshoku

45:57 Hideyuki Anzai  Nissin  

After stage -

1 (12.3Km) -

35:55   Nissin

35:57  Toyota Kyushu

36:00  Toyota

2 (20.6Km) -

58:29  Nissin

58:37  Kyudenko

58:46  NTN

58:47  Aisan Industry

58:48  Konica Minolta

3 (34.2Km) -

1:36:46 Konica Minolta

1:36:51 Toyota

1:37:27 Nissin

1:38:09 Asahi Kasei

1:38:14 Kyudenko

1:38:19 Fujitsu

4 (56.2Km) -

2:40:11 Konica

2:40:18 Nissin

2:41:52 Asahi Kasei

2:42.12 Toyota

2:42:30 Kyudenko  

5 (72Km) -

3:26:34 Nissin

3:27:05  Konica Minolta

3:28:27 Asahi Kasei  

3:29:24 Toyota

3:29:41 Yasukawa

6 (84.5Km) -

4:03:35 Nissin

4:04:02 Konica Minolta

4:05:29 Asahi Kasei

4:06:17 Toyota

4:06:17 Kyudenko