Komazawa began Day Two with a 30-second lead over final yr’s Sixth-placer Chuo College and a couple of:03 over 2022 Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin College. Following the success of 1st-year Takuma Yamakawa on the uphill Fifth leg yesterday, Oyagi opted to place 1st-year Aoi Ito on the steep downhill Sixth leg. Ito excelled, outrunning Chuo’s Haruto Wakabayashi by 17 seconds to win the stage on time and lengthen the result in 47 seconds. Chuo’s Tomohiro Chimori managed to shave 3 seconds off Komazawa’s lead on the 21.3 km seventh leg, outrunning Komazawa’s Taiyo Yasuhara 1:03:15 to 1:03:18, however that was the final time Komazawa misplaced any floor.

Over the ultimate three legs Komazawa’s Yuto Akahoshi, Chikara Yamano and Hibiki Aogaki opened on Chuo, Akahoshi taking the result in 1:05, Yamano to 1:32, and Aogaki to the ultimate margin of victory of 1:42. In a race the place solely certainly one of its ten runners received his stage however all ten positioned within the high 5, Komazawa’s time of 10:47:11 for the total 217.1 km course was the Third-best in Hakone historical past, a real staff effort. Broadcast announcer Yasuyuki Watanabe, a former Hakone 2nd leg course breaker who went on to teach Waseda in its 2010-2011 triple crown season, was amazed at Oyagi’s technique of placing 1st years on the brutal mountain levels whereas on the similar time not utilizing his most proficient 1st yr, U20 5000 m NR holder Keita Sato. “I may by no means have predicted that,” Watanabe mentioned. “He is aware of his information.”

Oyagi was stuffed with reward and gratitude to his runners post-race, crediting them for his or her focus the complete yr and for serving to construct a easily functioning and profitable program. He then introduced that he’ll step again to tackle an govt place, permitting assistant coach and former 2:06:51 marathon NR holder Atsushi Fujita to take over as head coach for the season main into subsequent yr’s one centesimal operating. Oyagi’s harsh voice screaming from the chase automotive speaker is likely one of the most recognizable issues at Hakone, and the occasion may have a unique really feel with out it.

Chuo’s 10:48:53 for 2nd made them the Fifth-fastest staff ever. Head coach and collegiate marathon NR holder Masakazu Fujiwara mentioned post-race that his purpose this time was a top-3 end as a step towards going for the win subsequent yr. All smiles, he mentioned, “I am very proud of their efficiency. My athletes did an ideal job.” Each Komazawa and Chuo may have roughly the identical variety of folks graduate this season, however with Komazawa dropping #1 man Ren Tazawa and Chuo conserving its finest, Yamato Yoshii, subsequent yr must be very fascinating.

However Hakone Day Two is not about simply the winners. The race for high 10 and a assured place on the subsequent yr’s race is at all times certainly one of its highlights, and with the one centesimal operating at stake this time the depth was greater than ever. Behind the highest two, a chase group of 5, Soka College, Hosei College, Waseda College, Koku Gakuin College and Juntendo College, congealed to battle it out for Third by way of seventh, Soka shifting up with a 1:02:43 stage win by Jun Kasai on the 21.3 km seventh leg and Hosei with a 1:04:16 win by Naoki Munakata on the 21.4 km Eighth leg.

Aoyama Gakuin faltered over the Sixth by way of Eighth legs, however ninth man Hironori Kishimoto blasted the 2nd-fastest time ever on the 23.1 km ninth leg, 1:07:27, to take all of them down and transfer into Third. And that is the place AGU stayed, ending in an all-time #9 10:54:25. Put up-race head coach Susumu Hara was uncharacteristically subdued, dropping his TV celeb persona and admitting actually that the mountain levels hadn’t gone effectively and that his selections for race-day substitutions principally hadn’t labored out. “It was a on condition that we nonetheless had the flexibility to complete Third,” he mentioned post-race, “however Aoyama Gakuin is not a staff that goals for Third. We’ll be again.”

In Kishimoto’s wake the 5-man chase pack broke aside, with virtually fixed turnover between them the remainder of the way in which. Izumo and Nationals runner-up Koku Gakuin took the highest spot amongst them at 4th in 10:55:01. When Kishimoto glided by Juntendo was the primary to fall off, however a stage-winning run from anchor Yuma Nishizawa introduced them again as much as Fifth in 10:55:18. Exterior the highest 10 final yr however again within the fold with a 4th-place end at October’s Yosenkai qualifier, in its first season beneath new head coach Katsuhiko Hanada Waseda was proper behind Juntendo in 10:55:21 for Sixth. Hosei ran the Third-fastest time on the Day Two course to bump up its Eighth-place Day One end to seventh in 10:55:28, whereas 2021 Hakone runner-up Soka moved up as excessive as Third earlier than falling to Eighth in 10:55:55 on the anchor stage.

That left the opposite large race of the day, the race for the final two spots at subsequent yr’s one centesimal version. Firstly of the day Tokyo Kokusai College sat seventh, Josai College ninth, with podium common Toyo College 1:27 exterior the reduce in Eleventh and #6-ranked Meiji College, one of many authentic 4 faculties to run the first Hakone in 1920, one other 47 seconds behind in twelfth. A seventh stage joint win by Meiji’s Safumi Sugi introduced them up into vary, however Toyo mirrored that with a joint win on the Eighth stage by Daichi Kimoto to close Meiji out. Josai overtook Tokyo Kokusai, then Toyo did too.

On the anchor stage Josai’s Shuma Yamanaka and Toyo’s Taiga Seino went backwards and forwards the complete approach, not seeming to note Tokyo Kokusai anchor Keigo Horihata closing on them till he was inside 20 seconds. Yamanaka then made a transfer that put Josai completely forward, bringing them house in ninth in 10:58:22. Toyo was simply 4 seconds behind in 10:58:26 for tenth, nearer than any of their followers would have appreciated however efficiently conserving its streak of podium finishes courting again to 2006.

Horihata may solely watch as Yamanaka pulled away and dragged Seino with him, slowing quickly for an agonizing Eleventh-place end in 10:59:58 after having come so shut. With Tokyo Kokusai’s high two Vincent Yegon and Ken Tansho graduating this yr the staff will face a tricky battle to re-qualify for subsequent yr’s one centesimal operating now. Likewise for Meiji, whose staff this yr was closely populated with 4th-years however may nonetheless do no higher than twelfth in 11:01:37.

The underside three groups within the discipline, Kokushikan College, the Kanto Area Pupil Alliance choose staff and Senshu College, all obtained white sashed when their runners fell greater than 20 minutes behind chief Komazawa, which means the tasuki sash they began with did not full the race. In Senshu’s case ninth man Riki Minami missed the cutoff by solely 9 seconds, one of the devastating moments of the race. Making it by way of, although, was 18th-place Rikkyo College. In simply its 4th season beneath head coach Yuichiro Ueno Rikkyo certified for Hakone this yr for the primary time in 55 years, and it made it to the end line with its authentic tasuki. Beating the white sash cutoffs as a program with basically no expertise isn’t any small achievement, and post-race Ueno seemed correctly proud of it.