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16-Year-Old Rin Kubo Becomes First Japanese Woman to Break 2:00 for 800 m


At the July 15 Long Distance Time Trials meet in Nara, Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S. 2nd-year Rin Kubo, 16, added the 800 m national record to her national title two weeks ago and 4x800 m NR on Friday, becoming the first Japanese woman to break 2 minutes with a new NR of 1:59.93.

The previous NR of 2:00.45 was set on June 5, 2005 by Miho Sugimori. Kubo cut 0.52 seconds off that time, set almost three years before Kubo was born, and in doing it she achieved one of her major goals, becoming Japan's first woman to break the 2-minute barrier. It also majorly improved her own U18 NR of 2:03.13 set at Nationals two weeks ago, and bettered her 2:01.9 split in the NR-setting 4x800 m three days ago where she went through the first 400 m in 56.8.

Translator's note: Kubo's 100 m splits per the stadium announcer: 14-28-43-58-1:13-1:29-1:44-1:59.93

Worldwide, her 1:59.93 is the 2nd-fastest U18 time in the world this year behind the 1:57.86 run by 17-year-old Phoebe Gill of Great Britain in May. But although the Nara meet was an official JAAF-sanctioned meet and the JAAF recognizes Kubo's mark, it looks like it will not be recognized by World Athletics as either the NR or Kubo's PB because the meet was not registered to the World Athletics calendar in advance.

source article:
translated and edited by Brett Larner

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Comments

Anonymous said…
Is it not possible to ask for the competition to be added to the "world athletics" calendar?
Brett Larner said…
No, the paperwork and fees have to be taken care of before the competition. Otherwise races and meets could just opt not to pay WA unless there were good results that belong in the database, like this one.

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