Posted: September 25, 2005

Athletics: Mizuki Noguchi breaks world records at 25 k and 30 k at the real,- BERLIN-MARATHON

Mizuki Noguchi broke two world records at the 32. real,- BERLIN-MARATHON: at 25 and 30 k. The split times of the 27-year old Japanese were faster than the former records. She split at 25 k 1:22:12 hours and at 30 k a 1:38:48. With her finishing time of 2:19:12 hours Noguchi broke the course-, the Asian- and the Japanese record.

The two world records are still unoffical, because the referees have to approve it. But even if the official split times will be one or a couple of seconds slower, it would be still a world record. The previous best times were held by the Japanese Naoko Takahashi, which she had run in Berlin too. She had run the 25 k in 1:22:31 and the 30 k in 1:39:02 hours in 2001. Now Mizuki improved the 25 k record by 19 seconds and the 30 k record by 14 seconds.

Britain’s Paula Radcliffe was running the Flora London Marathon 2003 and passed 30 k faster, but the course is going down more than allowed at that point (1 metre per k). At the certain mark there has to be proper set of official judges, who are normally at a marathon race only at the finish. Only then the World Athletics Federation IAAF accepts the split time as a world record. At the real,- BERLIN-MARATHON race director Mark Milde decided to have officials at both marks in advance.

Please note that this are provisional figures, which might change.

Quotes:

Mark Milde , race director real,- BERLIN-MARATHON

“We are happy that the 32. edition went through without complications. We had a new course record, Asian- and Japanese record by Mizuki Noguchi. But we also had three world records. First was the world record for blind runners by Regina Vollbrecht from Germany . Then we are happy to announce two world records by Mizuki Noguchi. She ran a new road race world record at 25 k as well as 30 k. We are very happy about that!”

Mizuki Noguchi, winner of real,- BERLIN-MARATHON and world record holder at 25 and 30 k and new course record holder as well as Asian- and Japanese record holder

"Yesterday I couldn’t realize what I did. This morning when I had a run I just started to realize what I have done yesterday.“

"I didn’t know about the 25 k world record until this morning. I realized during the race that I broke the 30 k world record, because my personal best for 30 k was 1:39:09 . I don’t know if I can be happy about it, because I know that Paula Radcliffe already had run faster. May be I was lucky to have run the BERLIN MARATHON.”

Philip Manyim, winner of real,- BERLIN-MARATHON

"Today, one day after the race, I feel okay. Sure here and there I have some pain, but that is normal after a marathon. Yesterday right after the race I called my family and they were very happy about my victory. Some training colleagues went to Eldoret to watch it live on TV. The victory at the real,- BERLIN-MARATHON opened new doors for me to run at other big marathon races.“