by Brett Larner With a commanding lead after six days of racing, the Fukuoka Prefecture team came into the final two days of the eight-day, fifty-stage, 732.3 km Grand Tour Kyushu 2012 with little doubt of the outcome but no lack of effort. Preceded by three Fukuoka stage wins on the seventh day's first seven stages, anchor Kentaro Nakamoto , 6th place in the London Olympics men's marathon, won the second of his two 2012 Tour runs, blasting a 52:47 course record for the 17.9 km Eighth Stage. Nagasaki Prefecture anchor Yuki Mori was also under the old record, but Nakamoto's run was so dominating that he was a full 29 seconds faster than Mori. Nagasaki, 3rd overall on total time, won two stages to finish the day just over a minute behind leader Fukuoka and almost 9 minutes ahead of overall 2nd-place Miyazaki Prefecture , whose lone stage win of the day came courtesy of veteran marathoner Tomoyuki Sato on the 18.0 km Fourth Stage. Miyazaki st...
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