A marvelous run by Tomoo Tsubota helped the Konica team overcome a slow start and claim its second straight national corporate "ekiden" title with a meet record time Tuesday.
Tsubota overtook front-running Noriaki Igarashi of the Chugoku Electric Power team in his 15.9-km fifth leg and turned a deficit of 1 minute, 3 seconds into a 32-second lead as Konica went on to win the 100-km road relay in 4 hours, 45 minutes, 32 seconds.
Chugoku Electric crossed the finish line 49 seconds behind for second place and Nissin Food Products came home third in 4:49:38.