Yoko Shibui, a profile of the next great
marathon runner
K. Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
26 July 2001 - In each of the World Championships and the
Olympic Games since 1991, except for the 1995 Worlds at Göteborg, Japanese women have won
a medal in the marathon. On three occasions - Stuttgart (Junko Asari), Athens (Hiromi
Suzuki) and Sydney (Naoko Takahashi) - Japanese women won gold.
While none of the Japanese Olympic marathon team members, including the reigning Olympic marathon champion Naoko Takahashi are running in Edmonton, the Japanese are not short on talent. The latest star on the Japanese marathon scene is 22-year-old Yoko Shibui who recorded a marathon debut best in last January’s Osaka Ladies marathon. Perhaps because legendary coach Yoshio Koide, who guided Naoko Takahashi to the Olympic marathon gold medal, predicted that, "She (Shibui) will probably be able to run sub 2:20 marathon in her second or third marathon. Shibui may be the most talented runner in Japan," Shibui has been attracting much attention recently. Perhaps because of her looks and her outgoing personality, not only Shibui is a subject of sports magazines, but she is already a subject of tabloids in Japan.
Although Shibui started to run track in junior high school, she could not recall why she joined the track team. She continued to run track in high school but her high school career was undistinguished for the first two years. However, when Shibui led for nearly two thirds of the 5000m race at the 1995 national high school distance meet (although she only finished in 17:20.66), she was noticed by Hideo Suzuki, the coach of Mitsui Kaijyo (insurance company) track team. Suzuki talked to a former college track teammate who happened to be Shibui’s high school coach.
Shibui made a breakthrough in her senior year, finishing fifth at the 3000m in the national inter-high school championships, as well as finishing third in the prestigious first stage of the national high school ekiden championships. Naturally, Shibui started to attract the attention of the recruiters from corporate track teams. But because Suzuki was the first coach who talked to Shibui well before she transformed into a good runner, she choose to join the Mitsui Kaijyo track team in 1997.
Shibui’s first two years in Mitsui Kaijyo track team were undistinguished. But Hideo Suzuki who was coached by legendary Yoshio Koide when Suzuki was a high school student, was patient, just like his own coach had been.
The turning point for Shibui came in the end of 1999, when she was sent to altitude training in Kunming, China for the first time.
Training with Reiko Tosa who was attempting her first serious marathon in the 2000 Nagoya women’s marathon, the high altitude work was hard for Shibui. However, the effect of altitude training was apparent when she came back to Japan. In January’s Inter-Prefectural ekiden championships, Shibui recorded 31:59 for the 10Km stage, which was the best stage performance. She followed it up with the 1:09:31 half marathon at the 2000 Matsue Ladies half marathon in March. Then in April, she led from 4800m to the final lap in the Hyogo relays 10,000m, an Olympic qualifying race. At the end, she was outkicked by Yuko Kawakami, but Shibui improved her 10,000m personal best to a stunning 31:48.89, nearly a minute’s improvement.
The coach told her that she had a chance to make the World Championships team in either the 10,000m or the marathon. In the summer of 2000, Shibui chose the marathon and started to prepare herself for her debut over the distance.
She continued to run well in the winter of 2000/2001 season, recording best stages in all the ekiden races she entered. On November 3, 2000, during a 10Km stage, Shibui recorded 31:09. Nine days later, in another ekiden race, she recorded a new stage best of 31:11 for 10km. These performances were faster than her track best of 31:48.89 recorded at the 2000 Hyogo Relays in April. On December 10, 2000 she ran a 32:03 10Km stage at the Japanese women’s corporate ekiden championships. For the stage where the teams place their best runners, she was faster than Esther Wanjiru, Yuko Kawakami, Harumi Hiroyama and Megumi Tanaka, all Olympians. Then Shibui left for another high altitude session in Kunming. Because Shibui has trained twice at high altitude with Reiko Tosa before Tosa run sub 2:25 marathon, after running faster than Tosa did at the 40Km training run, both Shibui and coach Suzuki knew that she was ready for a fast marathon.
Because of the ekiden performances in the winter of 2000 mentioned earlier, Shibui’s marathon debut at the January’s Osaka Ladies marathon was awaited with anticipation. Tatsuo Terada wrote a special feature on Shibui just before the Osaka Ladies’ marathon in the Track & Field Magazine of Japan.
A few days before the race, when the Osaka ladies marathon organizer asked Shibui of her desired pace, coach Suzuki answered, "Shibui does not need any pace maker. (She can make her own pace)."
Before the race, Shibui said that her goal for the race was to win with 2:24:35, which is one second faster than Tosa’s personal best. The coach set a minimum goal as the national marathon debut record (2:26:26 by Yumi Kokamo at the 1992 Osaka Ladies’ marathon) for Shibui. However, secretly, she wrote down the split of the course record time from the last year for her reference. So when the designated rabbit, Restituta Joseph, ran the pace (16:40 for each 5Km) set for Alemu, Shibui just went with them. When Joseph dropped out of the race at the half way point, Alemu also slowed down. Undaunted, Shibui kept on going at the same pace, and left Alemu in her wake. Although Shibui hit the wall and slowed down from the 35Km, she won the race by more than 3 minutes with the world best debut performance, 2:23:11.
Automatically selected (because she won the Worlds’ qualifying race with sub 2:26 performance) for the World Championships marathon team, Shibui still raced the 10,000m in the 2001 Hyogo relays and recorded a new personal best of 31:48.73, in line with her declaration: "I would like to be a runner who excels in both track and marathon."
Since May, Shibui has been training in Boulder Colorado with Reiko Tosa who will also be running the World Championships marathon. As part of thevmeticulous preparation for the marathon, which has became the tradition for the Japanese, Shibui and Tosa went to Edmonton three times to run over the course. Asked of Shibui’s medal prospects, Hideo Suzuki told the Track & Field Magazine of Japan, "It all depends on her final preparation leading up to the race. Shibui can win it. But she can also run poorly..."
Photo by Tatsuo Terada (c)2001
