箱根駅伝
The Hakone Ekiden is a men’s university road relay organized by the Kanto student athletics federation. Teams race from Tokyo to Hakone and return the following day, with each runner covering one stage and passing a cloth sash. Route, selection and starting rules all matter: the order visible on the road is not always the overall ranking.
The 102nd edition, held on 2–3 January 2026, covered 217.1 kilometres in ten stages.
Ten stage runners form the relay, each running one stage.
The qualifying race adds individual half-marathon times to produce a university team result.
A runner wears the tasuki diagonally from one shoulder to the opposite underarm. Under the 102nd-edition rules, the incoming runner must reach the exchange line before passing it within the following 20-metre zone. It is flexible cloth rather than a baton.
For the 102nd edition, the outbound route from Otemachi in Tokyo to Lake Ashi in Hakone measured 107.5 kilometres; the return measured 109.6, making 217.1 overall. Both directions use exchange stations at Tsurumi, Totsuka, Hiratsuka and Odawara. The two days are not identical distances in reverse.
Stage order for the 102nd edition
The route links urban roads, the coast and the Hakone mountains. Stage 5 mainly climbs but descends after its high point. Stage 6 begins with roughly four kilometres uphill before a long descent. Terrain and stage length help explain why teams assign different runners to different parts of the course.
In the 102nd edition, teams finishing within ten minutes of the outbound leader restarted with their time gaps preserved. The remaining teams started together ten minutes after the leader. Two teams running close together on the return could therefore have substantially different accumulated times.
Compulsory early starts help keep the road operation moving when teams fall too far behind. In the 102nd edition, outbound limits were ten minutes at two stations and fifteen at the other two; return stations used twenty minutes. Sash arrangements follow additional stage-specific rules, while the overall result must still be read through accumulated time.
The 102nd race had twenty university teams and an open Kanto student-selected team, whose performances were reference results. For the 102nd and 103rd editions, entry is limited to universities affiliated with the Kanto student athletics federation. The leading ten universities earned automatic entry to the next edition; the 103rd qualifying race selected ten more universities. Field size and eligibility should be tied to an edition, rather than treated as permanent features.
The 103rd qualifier’s requirements specified a 21.0975-kilometre race around Tachikawa. Schools could enter ten to sixteen athletes and start ten to twelve; each school’s fastest ten times were added to determine qualification. This mass-start race is different from the ten-stage relay at the main event.
From the 102nd edition, the Kanto selected roster combined one place for each qualifying-race school ranked eleventh to twentieth with six individual places from other nonqualifying schools, one athlete per school. The main relay still has ten stages. The roster should not be mistaken for sixteen consecutive relay runners.
The 102nd rules allowed up to sixteen university-team entries: ten assigned stage runners and up to six reserves. A change brought a reserve into a stage rather than swapping already assigned runners between stages. Matching runners to the demands of the route is part of the team competition.
The official history links the event to the 1917 Kyoto–Tokyo relay and Shiso Kanakuri’s ambition to develop international runners. The first Hakone race was held on 14–15 February 1920 with Waseda, Keio, Meiji and Tokyo Higher Normal School, the predecessor of today’s University of Tsukuba.
The race has not been held continuously every year since 1920. It was absent in 1941–42, held in 1943, then absent again in 1944–46. The official edition list resumes in 1947. Calendar years and edition numbers consequently cannot be treated as interchangeable counts.
The official account connects live broadcasting in 1987 with Nippon TV’s solution of mountain radio relay facilities. Federation officials and student assistants also staff exchanges and road operations. The running visible on screen depends on organization across a long, varied route.
The organizer’s course account records the extension of stage 4 from the 93rd edition. Distances belong to particular versions of the course: the 102nd edition’s 217.1 kilometres should not be projected onto the entire history. Route changes also matter when interpreting times from different years.
A federation announcement of 25 December 2025 keeps the 103rd edition at twenty-one teams and expands the field from the 104th in 2028. Regular editions will have twenty-four teams and four-yearly commemorative editions twenty-six. The 104th is itself commemorative, with nationwide qualifying eligibility and a Japan student-selected team. These are announced future arrangements as of 29 October 2026.
From the federation’s 25 December 2025 announcement; the 2028 arrangements remain future policy.
No. They pass a soft cloth tasuki, worn diagonally from a shoulder to the opposite underarm.
No. The 102nd edition measured 107.5 kilometres outbound and 109.6 on return, or 217.1 overall.
Return starts preserve some gaps but combine other teams, and compulsory early starts can occur. Accumulated time determines the overall picture.
No. The 103rd qualifier added each school’s fastest ten individual half-marathon times.
No. Under the announced reform, twenty-four is the regular field; the commemorative 104th in 2028 is planned for twenty-six.