Tokyo International Women's Marathon Explained

The Tokyo International Women's Marathon was a marathon for female elite runners held in Tokyo from 1979 until 2008 in November.

It was first held in November 1979, and this race was the first women's marathon officially sanctioned by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF).^[1] After Adriaan Paulen, the IAAF president, watched this event, he announced his support for the women's Marathon to be included in the Olympic Games.^[1]

After the 30th edition the organisers (Japan Association of Athletics Federations (JAAF), Asahi Shimbun and TV Asahi) discontinued the race, because the new Tokyo Marathon held since 2007 is open for general runners of both sexes and Metropolitan Police Department deemed it difficult to care for two different city marathons within one year.

The place of the Tokyo Women's Marathon in the Japanese race calendar was taken by the Yokohama Women's Marathon whose first edition was held on November 15, 2009.

Winners

Key:

Edition	Date	Athlete	Time
1st	November 18, 1979		2:37:48
2nd	November 16, 1980	Joyce Smith	2:30:27
3rd	November 15, 1981		2:34:28
4th	November 14, 1982		2:34:26
5th	November 20, 1983		2:37:09
6th	November 18, 1984		2:33:23
7th	November 17, 1985	Katrin Dörre	2:34:21
8th	November 16, 1986		2:27:15
9th	November 15, 1987	Katrin Dörre	2:25:24
10th	November 20, 1988		2:31:26
11th	November 19, 1989		2:31:33
12th	December 9, 1990		2:33:04
13th	November 17, 1991		2:31:27
14th	November 15, 1992		2:27:38
15th	November 21, 1993		2:26:40
16th	November 20, 1994	Valentina Egorova	2:30:09
17th	November 19, 1995		2:28:46
18th	November 17, 1996		2:28:58
19th	November 30, 1997		2:27:45
20th	November 15, 1998	Junko Asari	2:28:29
21st	November 21, 1999		2:22:12
22nd	November 19, 2000		2:24:02
23rd	November 18, 2001		2:25:08
24th	November 17, 2002		2:24:59
25th	November 16, 2003		2:24:47
26th	November 21, 2004		2:26:34
27th	November 20, 2005		2:24:39
28th	November 19, 2006		2:26:15
29th	November 18, 2007		bgcolor=#A9F5A9	2:21:37
30th	November 16, 2008		2:23:30

References

Winners list

Tokyo Women's Marathon at arrs.run

External links

Official Website (English version)
Tokyo Women's Marathon at marathoninfo.free.fr

Notes and References

Web site: Lovett. Charlie. The Fight to Establish the Women's Race. Excerpted from Olympic Marathon: A Centennial History of the Games' Most Storied Race. Web Marketing Associates (WMA). 1997. 2008-11-17 .