Ritsumeikan University records first victory at second UK Ekiden held in the United Kingdom

On Friday, June 20, 2025, the FT Nikkei UK Ekiden Year 2 was held in the London suburb of Windsor, and the team from Ritsumeikan University, which was competing for the first time, took home first place.

The UK Ekiden was first held in in June 2024 with the aim of promoting the culture of ekiden in the UK and to celebrate the 100th Hakone Ekiden, which was held in January 2024.
Ekiden, or long-distance relay running, is a sport that originated in Japan. Borrowing from the Japanese concept, the UK Ekiden follows a 114-km route divided into 10 legs. Starting from a park overlooking Windsor Castle, it passes along a riverside promenade called the Thames Path, before turning back at the halfway point in Reading.

A total of 31 teams and 310 people from universities and companies in Japan and the UK participated in this year’s race. Ten students (5 men and 5 women) from Ritsumeikan University competed in the mixed-gender university category. Team captain, Makoto Tsuchiya (4th year, College of Sport and Health Science), ran the 8th leg, and Yura Arata (3rd year, College of Sport and Health Science) served as anchor for the team, whose members all ran well. Although the route was full of grass and unpaved trails that are not usually found in ekiden races, the Ritsumeikan University team won the race with a time of 6 hours, 54 minutes and 49 seconds.

Comment from Captain Makoto Tsuchiya (4th year, College of Sport and Health Science)

I am extremely happy that our team was victorious in the second running of the UK Ekiden. In this race, I experienced many things for the first time, each of which was new and exciting, so I had a fulfilling week in the UK. Running alongside competitors from other countries was also stimulating, so I feel that this race provided us with a boost ahead of Japan’s ekiden season which starts in the fall. On the day of the event, we learned how the race would be managed and how the route was prepared, so this made us realize how good the environments that we usually compete in really are. I am very grateful for this opportunity and for the generous support that we received from the staff and everyone else involved in the ekiden. I will continue working hard as I strive to reach even greater heights going forward.

Comment from Coach Kenichi Sugimura

It was a very rare and invaluable experience for Japanese runners to compete in an ekiden overseas. For many of Ritsumeikan’s runners, this was their first overseas trip, so it afforded them with an opportunity to broaden their horizons as athletes by encountering many things that are different from Japan, such as how races are managed and how athletes from overseas approach and train for competitions like this one. I would like to thank Asics Japan for providing us with the opportunity to compete in this race and everyone who helped to organize this event.