At the Princess Ekiden, a women’s relay race, in October 2018, Iida Rei, a 19-year-old runner for Iwatani Sangyō, broke her right shin. She crawled on all fours to hand the tasuki, the team’s sash, to the next runner. Reports give the distance she crawled as 200 meters, 250 meters or about 300 meters.
On television afterward, the sociologist Furuichi Noritoshi proposed that a runner who cannot go on should be allowed to pass the sash from where she stops. The host, Ogura Tomoaki, replied: Sore jā ekiden no imi ga nai wake deshō. Then there would be no point in an ekiden.