Road relay 42.195 km, men

What to remember

In Japan, the ekiden passes a cloth sash, the tasuki, from runner to runner over the marathon distance. On November 23, 2005, at the Chiba Ekiden, a Kenyan team covered the 42.195 km in 1 h 57 min 06.00 s, an average of 21.620 km/h (13.434 mph).

The name comes from the old courier system that carried messages by stages: "eki" means station and "den" means to convey, so the word roughly reads "station to station". In its usual form, six runners take turns over 5 km, 10 km, 5 km, 10 km, 5 km and finally 7.195 km.

The team was Josephat Ndambiri, Martin Mathathi, Daniel Muchunu Mwangi, Mekubo Mogusu, Onesmus Nyerre and John Kariuki. Ndambiri knew the country well: he had moved to Japan as a teenager on an athletic scholarship, graduated from Ryutsu Keizai University and specialised in the 5000 m and 10,000 m. Earlier that year he had led the first half of the Sapporo Half Marathon.