New Year's biggest event in Japan: Hakone Ekiden

Ekiden is a long-distance relay road race which is very popular in Japan. Especially, New Year's Hakone Ekiden in which twenty university teams participate is the most exciting. It takes place on January 2 and 3. On the first day the race starts in front of Yomiuri Newspaper Company's Tokyo head office at 8:00 am and finishes at Lake Ashi of Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture. It takes nearly 6 hours. On the second day they run from Hakone to Tokyo. The distance from Yomiuri's head office to Hakone is 108 kilometers and the course is divided into five relays. So, each university team has to choose 10 strong distance runners.
Every year I go to Hodogaya station to see the 9th relay and the Kyobashi area to see the 10th relay.

This is the film which I took in front of Hodogaya Station. The 9th runner of Nippon Sport Science University is in the lead of the race.

On the roadside drummers are beating Japanese drums to cheer the runners.

In the Kyobashi area of Tokyo many people are waiting to see runners along the Ekiden course.

Here comes the top runner, the tenth relay runner of Nippon Sport Science University that finally won the race for the first time in 30 years.
Written and posted by Mitsutoshi Masunari; mitch68canada@yahoo.co.jp