A close contest is sure to be held at the Student Kendo Championships to decide Japan's top individual kendo champions on June 29th and 30th

A close contest is sure to be held at the Student Kendo Championships to decide Japan’s top individual kendo champions on June 29th and 30th

The 58th All-Japan Student Women’s Kendo Championship and the 72nd All-Japan Student Kendo Championship will be held at Musashino Forest Sport Plaza in Chofu, Tokyo. (Photograph by Shun Suzuki)

The 72nd All Japan Student Kendo Championships, in which individual matches are held to determine the best university kendo player in Japan, and the 58th All Japan Women’s Student Kendo Championships (both sponsored by the Mainichi Shimbun and the All Japan Student Kendo Federation) will be held on the 29th and 30th at Musashino Forest Sport Plaza in Tokyo. While Kanto teams are strong in both the women’s competition on the 29th and the men’s competition on the 30th, it is shaping up to be a close race, and attention will be focused on how players from other regions will fare. An East vs. West knockout tournament with 20 men and 10 women will also be held at the same time.[Asazuma Hiroyuki]

Previous men’s results

Winner: Eiji Kimura (National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Kanoya)

Runner-up: Tatsuya Suzuki (Hosei University)

3rd place: Seigo Yamamoto (Nippon Sport Science University), Masatoshi Yano (Hosei University)

Fighting Spirit Award: Kotaro Yoneda (University of Tsukuba), Ryunosuke Ikeda (Chuo University), Takuhito Kohiyama (Keio University), Kazuma Hashimoto (Tokyo University of Agriculture)

Previous women’s results

Winner: Yoshina Kawai (University of Tsukuba)

Runner-up: Yuzuki Inohara (Chuo University)

3rd place: Marino Kitazawa (University of Tsukuba), Hinako Kasa (University of Tsukuba)

Fighting Spirit Award: Yuzuki Sato (Yamagata University), Nichinan Nakamura (Nippon Sport Science University), Mako Okutani (University of Tsukuba), Airi Yukawa (Osaka University of Health and Sport Sciences)