Barclays retain Bloomberg Square Mile Relay Tokyo title

Last night, 70 teams from Tokyo’s leading companies raced against each other at the Bloomberg Square Mile Relay in the heart of the Marunouchi District in a record sold-out event. Returning champions Barclays once again took the coveted trophy and the title of “fastest firm in the city”, completing ten laps of the one-mile route in 51 minutes and 30 seconds.

Coming 1 minute and 16 seconds behind Barclays in second place was ABeam Impulse, with Nomura Asset Management in third place. Individually, the fastest runner of the night, with a time of 4 minutes and 35 seconds, was Yoshinori Mera from adidas Japan.

The ‘Fastest Mixed Team’ on the night was the Bloomberg team “Faster than your Internet” with a combined running time of 57 minutes and 52 seconds. To continue the race’s commitment to increasing female participation across the series, the ‘Fastest Female Team’ category was launched this year and the inaugural award in Tokyo was won by Anan, who completed the race in 1 hour, 16 minutes and 45 seconds.

Barclays’ winning time of 51:30 is a new global leading time for 2019.

It was also announced on the night that, due to a 25% contribution from all team entry fees, JPY 2,200,000 had been raised go to towards The Extra Mile charitable program in partnership with Special Olympics Nippon. The Extra Mile program is a chance for the Bloomberg Square Mile Relay to make an impact way beyond the finish line and contribute to the local community in a bigger, better way. Special Olympics Nippon will help deliver a year-long funded legacy program to address a cause specific to Tokyo, selected by the runners themselves, on the subject of Education.

Mr. Ishibashi, Bloomberg, Head of Japan said: “I was deeply touched tonight to see so many colleagues coming together to take part in the race. More runners than ever before took part as a team. We value the importance of diversity and contributing to society and it was a great pleasure to see you all had the opportunity to deepen the bonds within your companies and each other, whilst having fun through sport.”

James Hassett, Managing Director of the event organizer Square Mile Sport, said: “This year marks a huge milestone, with a sold-out 70 teams participating in the Tokyo event. The Bloomberg Square Mile Relay is an unparalleled global sporting event that offers the city’s leading institutions an opportunity to come together for a night of camaraderie, competition, teamwork, celebration and networking, in support of a special cause. We look forward to another sell-out event in 2020!”