Gaijin Students Restricted From Participating in Ekiden Marathon for Being Too Fast

The executive committee of the National High School Ekiden Championship announced plans to restrict the participation of gaijin students, who will be limited to the shortest 3km section of the relay marathon in 2024 due to many cases of foreign students breaking records last year.

In 2023, men competed in 7 sections of 42.195 km, while the women competed in 5 sections of 21.0975 km. Gaijin students were previously able to compete in all but the longest section (10 km for men, 6 km for women), but there were many cases in which “rankings changed signficantly depending on how fast the (gaijin) racer ran.”

Starting this year, international students will only be able to run in the 3 km sections. Prior to the decision, a survey was conducted to seek the opinions of track and field officials from the Prefectural High School Athletic Federation, and the majority were in favor of restricting the distances for gaijin students.

“Increasing the speed of the junior generation” is said to be the reason behind the restrictions. “We must always strive to improve our speed, especially in the junior years,” said Toshinari Takaoka, senior director in character of marathons at the Japan Athletics Federation.

The Japan Federation of High School Athletics set a rule that the number of international students should be within 20%. However, in the first section of the men’s Ekiden race, which is the longest section, gaijin students regularly stood out with a large gap compared to the Japanese students.

While the number of foreign students has decreased for this year’s marathon relay, there will be an increase in spots with 58 schools representing the 11 regions across Japan in addition to the 47 schools representing each prefecture for boys and girls.