Saturday, January 5, 2008

Hakone Ekiden Marathon

Some sports events hold in New Year. Football or Rugby, Marathon.
Hakone Ekiden (Road relay) Marathon is very popular in Japan. This marathon begun from 1920 and is traditional sports event.

It is for each universities student runners and it holds for 2 days. 20 universities can entry in this marathon. The runners in 1 university are 10 people. 5 runners must run about 108 km in 1 day from Tokyo, Otemachi to Hakone. And other 5 runners run next day from Hakone to Otemachi.
Otemachi is one of downtown centers. Hakone is in Kanagawa prefecture next Tokyo and famous as a town of hot spring (Onsen). Hakone area has a mountain, Hakone-yama. Ups and Downs of the road is sharp. ( Hakone is very beautiful Onsen spot. I love Hakone.) Teamwork is important for Ekiden.
A lot of people go to see the runners to cheer. This event is on air in TV. Many people watch TV eating Osechi. Winner team this year is Komazawa University.
Marathon is one of sports that Japanese like.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I like your last sentence. I think I agree with you because i usually watched there was artist/idol/someone on TV did marathon in some events. If im not mistaken it is 24 時間テレビ. Because i saw this kind of advertisement quite often i came to a conclusion that japanese really love marathon. What is that event for actually? (refering to the 24 時間テレビ)

Ricky said...

24時間テレビ is TV program in last week in August at nihon TV broadcast. It is a program to collect donation for handicapped persons or poor people and children all over the world. A lot of singer, comedians and actors appeal the donation in it.
Arashi is main personality this year and broadcast from today to tommorow Sunday.
Marathon is an main event in it. Well-known person run for whole a day every year.

Unknown said...

Oh wow! Its a very good programme. Thanks for explaining to me :)

I will watch this programme (and arashi too) when i have time :)