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Noguchi Plans for New World Record Before Olympics

http://beijing2008.nikkansports.com/athletics/p-sp-tp0-20071216-296028.html

translated by Brett Larner

Probable Beijing Olympics women`s marathon team member Mizuki Noguchi (29, Team Sysmex) will compete in the Kumamoto 30 km road race on Feb. 24 next year in an attempt to set a new world record at the distance. Her coach Nobuyuki Fujita (67) held a press conference today to announce the news, saying that, "Setting a world record would make a major impact leading into the Olympics." Noguchi is also scheduled to run in the All-Japan Interprefectural Women`s Ekiden on Jan. 13. She plans to leave on Dec. 27 for a training camp on Amami Oshima.

Translator`s note: Mizuki Noguchi set the current 30 km world record of 1:38:49 during the 2005 Berlin Marathon. Paula Radcliffe ran 1:36:36 for 30 km while setting the marathon world record at the 2003 London Marathon, but the IAAF apparently does not consider this 30 km mark or any of the other 30 km splits run by Radcliffe and Catherine Ndereba to be official world records. Takayuki Matsumiya set the men`s 30 km world record, 1:28:00, at the 2005 Kumamoto 30 km road race.

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