retiring

Naoko Takahashi, the Japan athletic, has announced her retirement.

She has won the 2000 Olympic marathon champion and she was the first woman to break the magical 2:20.

She was planning to run the upcoming Tokyo International Woman’s marathon and was training, but she had to pull out because she wasn’t able to get into shape.

She felt she had to retire because she feels that she can no longer run like a professional runner.

A true athlete she has been, as she had set a national record back in 1998 when she ran for 2:21:47 in the Asian games in Bangkok.

In 2000 and 2001, she became one of the best marathon runner in the world, when she won the Olympic title in Sydney, before she ran for 2:19:46 (world fastest time), at the 2001 Berlin marathon. In 2005 she won what was her last marathon in Tokyo.

She has said that when she has retired, she isn’t going to stop running.