Hakone Ekiden

Hakone Ekiden (箱根駅伝^?), which is officially called Tokyo-Hakone Round-Trip College Ekiden Race (東京箱根間往復大学駅伝競走, Tōkyō Hakone kan Ōfuku Daigaku Ekiden Kyōsō^?), is one of the most prominent university ekiden (relay marathon) races of the year held between Tokyo and Hakone in Japan on 2 and 3 January. The race is telecast on Nippon Television.

This two-day race from Ōtemachi to Hakone and back is separated into five sections on each day. Due to slight variations in the courses, the first day distance is 108.0 km while the distance on the second day is 109.9 km. Only male runners are allowed to run.

Five sections are provided between Tokyo and Hakone each way. Each runner runs one section, alternates with the next runner at a station. Each team has ten runners, running with their teams' sashes which are handed over to the next runner on the team at each station.

If a runner cannot get to a station within twenty minutes after the top runner reached it, the next runner starts with a substitute sash. The time difference is added to the goal time.

Twenty universities, which belong to The Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto (関東学生陸上競技連盟, Kantō gakusei rikujō kyōgi renmei^?), can participate in this Ekiden. Ten of them are seeded teams that qualify by virtue of finishing in the top ten the previous year. Nine more teams qualify through their team results at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, a 20 km qualifier held in the October preceding the race. A final select team, the Kanto Region University Student United Team (関東学生連合チーム, Kantō gakusei rengō cheemu^?), made up of top-placing individuals at October's Yosenkai 20 km Road Race from universities that do not qualify for Hakone as teams. The 2014 race did not include a select team, and before 2014, the select team was called the Kanto Region Select Team (関東学連選抜チーム, Kantō gakuren senbatsu cheemu^?), and were also constituted by a selection of top runners from universities that did not qualify as one of the 19 participating teams.

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Wikipedia