On the first day of real summer weather conditions were hot and humid enough at Kanagawa's Gion Sagamihara Stadium that 3 out of the 4 track 10000 m heats making up the National University Ekiden's Kanto Region Qualifier saw at least one runner get into trouble. In Heat One, Yuto Ono (Shibata Kogyo Univ.) was in trouble after only 3000 m, dropping off the pack and falling to his hands and knees, then getting back up and almost walking his way around another couple of laps. His coach finally stopped him, knocking SKU out of contention to make the seven-deep qualifying bracket for November's Nationals. Heat Two went relatively smoothly, Peter Wanjiru (Daito Bunka Univ.) lapping the entire field before getting caught again by the top few in the chase pack but still winning the heat by almost a minute in 29:00.50. Heat Three saw Taiga Tosen (Surugadai Univ.) staggering in the home straight and falling meters from the finish line, crawling on his hands and knees until his to...
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