New Year in Japan

A typical Japanese New Year will always contain two things: Rice cake and Ekiden.

The corporate Ekiden in Gunma on Jan. 1., and the two legs of the Hakone Ekiden (pitching the leading universities against each other) on Jan. 2. and 3..

There are many good sites that feature the races, so I will not do this here. But I wonder if our members in other countries know what the worst thing in an Ekiden is? It is the 'white sash'! If a team does not connect because it is too far back, it will have to start with a white sash. Times will be added and you still remain a finisher, but for the runners, it is a tragedy. It happened to one team today, Omokawa Saimokuten, one of the lesser known teams, poor them.

But some of the top-teams are also struggling, only Konica/Minolta seems to be on their way to victory, but other favorites have at the hand-off for the last leg not yet secured a spot among the eight seeded teams for next year.

And yes, Konica/Minolta won, but SEVEN(!!!) teams sprinted for second place! An exciting race!

And BTW, a similar tragedy happened to me! My TV stopped working, and I have to watch the Ekiden on my one-seg cellphone!

Fortunately, the big screen came back on-line for the finish...

And here the results: