Malcolm Campbell
27 June 2000 The IAU 100km Race in Hokkaido, Japan took place on June 25. The event was part of the IAU Race of Champions Circuit 2000 which is designed to attract leading ultrarunners to events throughout Millennium Year.
Tomoe Abe (JPN) running in her first 100km event shattered the ladies records to set an IAU World Best Performance of 6.33.11 beating the previous best of Ann Trason (USA) which stood at 7.00.48.
Abe is an international marathoner with a best time of 2.26.09 set in 1994. Earlier this year she had run a marathon in 2.28.01.
Interest is now focussed upon the IAU 100km World Challenge under the Patronage of IAAF which takes place at Winschoten, Netherlands on September 9th 2000.
There is every indication that Japan will send strong teams to compete - their athletes lead the ranking lists for 2000 and the performance of Abe indicates that statisticians will need to keep their pencils sharpened."
