On October 14, in the Hakone Ekiden preliminaries at Showa Memorial Park, Mikiya Tanabe finished in 56th position overall, leading to his selection for the Kanto Inter-University Athletic Union team, which is made up of individuals from universities whose Ekiden teams weren’t fast enough to qualify for the final race. However, even having been selected for the team, he was not certain to be chosen to run one of the ten legs in the race.

Now it’s certain: on November 25, on a track at Keio University in Hiyoshi, Tanabe took part in a special 10,000 m race. His finishing time of 29 minutes 46.26 seconds, combined with his time from the October preliminaries, was good for sixth place, meaning that he will run in the 94th Ekiden on January 2 or 3, 2018.