Birthplace and starting point of Ekiden
A monument next to Kyoto’s Sanjo Ohashi Bridge, the starting point of Japan’s first ekiden, a long-distance running multi-stage relay race. It was erected on April 29, 2017 by Japan Association of Athletic Federations Kyoto in commemoration of the 100-year anniversary of the first race.
The first ekiden race was sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun in 1917, and was run over three days between the old Japanese capital of Kyoto and the modern capital of Tokyo, a distance of 508 km, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the moving of the capital from Kyoto to Edo (nowadays Tokyo).
