Marathon star Takahashi comes to end of road
Written by Writer on Thursday, October 30th, 2008
Marathon star Takahashi comes to end of road
Ken Marantz Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter
Naoko Takahashi has reached the end of the road in her career.
Takahashi, the 2000 Sydney Olympic women’s marathon gold medalist who never managed to make it back to the Olympic stage, announced her retirement Tuesday, saying she could no longer train on the level of a “top athlete.”
“It’s a career I can be satisfied with,” said Takahashi, the first Japanese woman to win an Olympic gold in athletics and the the first woman in history to break 2 hours 20 minutes in the marathon.
Takahashi, 36, said she agonized over the matter for months but was relieved that she had finally reached this decision.
“I feel like I’ve been through a typhoon, and now all I feel is the gentle breeze that follows,” Takahashi told a packed press conference at a Tokyo hotel.
Takahashi’s abrupt announcement ended an audacious plan she had to run–and win–three major marathons over a five-month span, beginning in Tokyo next month.
“To those looking forward to seeing me run in the three races, I apologize,” said Takahashi, affectionately known as “Q-Chan.”
Takahashi had been training in Boulder, Colo., over the summer, but realized that “mentally and physically I couldn’t run like I wanted to.”
“I don’t have to be No. 1, but I have to be satisfied with the process of getting there,” Takahashi said.
Throughout the press conference, Takahashi referred to the person she expected herself to be as “Pro Takahashi,” saying now she would have to be content with being “Jogger Takahashi.”
“I burned all of my energy and I feel refreshed today,” Takahashi said.
Takahashi, under the guidance of noted marathon guru Yoshio Koide, first made her mark on the marathon scene when she ran away with the gold medal at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, clocking an inconceivable 2 hours 21 minutes 47 seconds in broiling heat.
Her victory in Sydney made her one of the most marketable athletes in Japan, an image she enhanced when she set a then-world record of 2:19:46 a year later in Berlin.
But the wheels started coming off the Q-Chan Express in 2003, when she finished second in the Tokyo Women’s Marathon in a slow 2:27:21 and was overlooked for the team to the 2004 Athens Olympics.
After a well-publicized split with Koide in May 2005, Takahashi took matters into her own hands, forming Team Q and basically becoming her own coach.
A win over a weak field in the 2005 Tokyo Women’s Marathon was enough to land her a multimillion-dollar, three-year contract with health product maker Phiten which was supposed to take her up to this summer’s Beijing Olympics.
After placing a distant third in the 2006 Tokyo race–a qualifier for the 2007 Osaka world championships, where a medal would have earned an automatic berth on the team to Beijing–Takahashi’s lone remaining path to the Olympics was the Nagoya Marathon last March.
But in a shocking twist, Takahashi not only failed to win, she lagged behind to a career-worst 27th in 2:44:18.
(Oct. 29, 2008)
