http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/etc/20140417-OHT1T50093.html translated and edited by Brett Larner video by naoki620 A new wind is blowing on the road to Hakone as the newly-minted Obirin University ekiden team becomes fully operational this year. In April last year Stephen Mayaka , 41, who wowed the nation at the Hakone Ekiden as a student at Yamanashi Gakuin University , became head coach at Obirin. Devoting his first year to recruiting, this spring Mayaka welcomed sixteen athletes including Kenyan Lazarus Motanya Asimundi to the new program. The fresh-faced team made up entirely of first-years is dead-set on making the main event at Hakone before they graduate four years from now. The sound of feet striking Obirin's cherry tree-lined track in Sagamihara is the music of hope and anticipation. The "single-batch" team of sixteen is finally underway on the road that Coach Mayaka has plotted out for them. Without distance runners on the school's track ...
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