Posted: March 15, 2004

Athletics: Takahashi Not Selected For Japanese Olympic Team

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

Although the outcome of this summer's women's Olympic Marathon cannot be predicted, it is a certainty that there will be a new Olympic champion.

The Japan Association of Athletics Federations named their Olympic marathon team today, and Naoko Takahashi, the defending gold medalist and former world record holder, was not named. Mizuki Noguchi, last summer's world championships silver medalist; Naoko Sakamoto, the 2004 Osaka Marathon champion; and Reika Tosa, the winner of yesterday's Nagoya Marathon, were named to the team, instead.

Noguchi was pre-selected based on her silver medal earned in Paris last summer, and Sakamoto and Tosa recorded the best performances in the three Olympic selection races used to pick the team: Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Takahashi finished second in Tokyo last November in 2:27:21, as compared to Sakamoto's 2:25:29 at Osaka and Tosa's 2:23:57 at Nagoya.

The JAAF also named the men's team. Last December's Fukuoka Marathon champion, Tomoaki Kunichika (2:07:52) was named along with Toshinari Suwa, who finished second in that race (2:07:55). The third man named was Shigeru Aburaya, who was fifth in last summer's world championships, the top Japanese finisher in that race.

Left off the team was Tadayuki Ojima, despite the fact that he ran 2:08:13 in Otsu last weekend and 2:08:48 at Fukuoka last December.

Subscribe to Race Results Weekly: www.raceresultsweekly.com.