Tokyo, Japan, December 16, 2020: One of Japan’s most cherished athletes, Naoko Takahashi, has become the latest athletics star to generously donate a competition item from their career to the World Athletics Heritage Collection, World Athletics reports.
Takahashi, known affectionately as “Q-chan” in her home country, was the first woman to run a marathon in under two hours 20 minutes.
Takahashi clocked an Olympic marathon record of 2:23:14 on September 24, 2000 to win at the Sydney Olympic Games. It was the first Olympic victory at the marathon by a Japanese woman and her Games record was not broken until 2012.
It is the Sydney Olympic bib number 2338 which she has very kindly donated today.
“I am happy to see my Sydney bib join the Heritage collection,” said Takahashi.
“I would like the bib’s donation to help increase interest in the marathon, and the challenge and beauty of distance running. It might also help motivate more people to take up running for fitness and fun, or perhaps even competitively, picturing themselves in my shoes.”
There was no underestimating Takahashi’s national popularity and fame after her Olympic triumph. She was the subject of a comic strip entitled "Kazekko," or "Daughter of the Wind". Launched in May 2001, the strip told Takahashi’s life story and at its height attracted 700,000 readers weekly.
Takahashi, who was coached by the late Yoshio Koide, who last year was posthumously awarded the World Athletics Plaque, won the first of her two Berlin Marathon titles in September 2001 with a landmark 2:19:46 performance - a world best and the first time in history that a woman had broken 2:20 for the distance.
Estimates vary but it is believed that 55 million Japanese, nearly half of the country’s population, watched Takahashi’s Berlin race on television.