Hakone Ekiden: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Tokyo)

Two days, ten legs, one sash

The race splits across two mornings. On January 2, 2027, five legs carry the teams from Otemachi, beside the Yomiuri Shimbun building in Chiyoda, down the coast and up into Hakone. On January 3, five more legs bring them back to the same Tokyo street.

The total is 217.1km, and each leg runs roughly a half marathon. Runners pass a cloth sash, the tasuki, at relay points such as Tsurumi, Totsuka, Hiratsuka and Odawara. A runner who misses the cut-off at a relay point watches his team restart with a white substitute sash, and fans treat that moment as the race’s real heartbreak.

Where the race is decided

Leg 5 is the one everybody talks about. It climbs from Odawara through Hakone-Yumoto on National Route 1, gaining hundreds of metres to the finish at Moto-Hakone on Lake Ashi.

Leg 6 reverses it the next morning, a steep downhill that wrecks quadriceps. Spectators wanting both mountain legs usually stay overnight in Hakone on January 2. Hakone-Yumoto has the most inns within walking distance of the course.

In Tokyo, the stretches through Shinagawa and along Hibiya-dori are lined several people deep. The Otemachi start and finish are the densest of all.

Getting to the course

The Tokyo end is easy to reach by subway. Otemachi Station is served by the Marunouchi, Tozai, Chiyoda and Hanzomon lines plus the Toei Mita Line, and Tokyo Station is a short walk away.

For Hakone, most fans ride the Odakyu Line from Shinjuku to Odawara or Hakone-Yumoto. The Romancecar limited express makes that trip without changes. Beyond Yumoto, the Hakone Tozan trains and buses share space with the race, and road closures along Route 1 stop buses while the runners pass.

Coastal relay points sit near JR Tokaido Line stations, so fans often see one handover in Yokohama and then catch the train ahead to the next.

Watching from the kerb

Spectating here has quiet rules. Crowds stand behind the kerb or barriers and never step into the road, and course marshals in uniform enforce that firmly. Running alongside a team or holding a phone out over the road counts as interference.

What fans usually do:

• Take one of the small paper flags volunteers often hand out and wave it as each runner passes, not just their own university’s.
• Follow the live Nippon TV broadcast on a phone, because the runners are past in seconds and the screen shows where the leaders are.
• Pick a spot near a convenience store or station, since roadside toilets are scarce.
• Dress for a long, cold wait: January mornings in the Hakone hills are much colder than central Tokyo.

University supporters’ clubs set up with banners and brass bands near relay points and the Otemachi finish. Neutral spectators are welcome to stand nearby, and clapping for every runner, including the last ones, is the norm.

The organiser, the Kanto Student Athletics Federation (Kanto Gakuren), and co-organiser Yomiuri Shimbun publish the route maps, relay-point locations and road-closure details on their official channels.