A Little Love for Hitomi Niiya, Please – by Brett Larner – Japan Running News

Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Hitomi Niiya.
She received little more than passing mention, if that, in most English-language coverage of Sunday's Moscow World Championships women's 10000 m, but she deserves a lot of credit for making the race regardless of its predicable outcome.

Prefigured precisely by her meet record 31:06.67 win at June's National Championships, where she took the lead just past 3000 m and ran alone right on national record pace to lap the entire field, and by the London Olympics where she led a significant portion of the race to make the top ten in a PB of 30:59.19, a performance that you would think should have earned her enough respect to be called by her name rather than just "Japanese girl" by at least one prominent American outlet covering Moscow, Niiya took over from struggling American rabbit Shalane Flanagan after 3000 m and relentlessly pushed on at PB pace until she had ground the field down to just four competitors, two Ethiopian and two Kenyan.

Needless to say, all four outkicked her over the last lap, but it is worth a second look at Niiya's lap-by-lap splits to see just how great she ran.  

Dr. Helmut Winter of German Road Races was kind enough to send the following split chart, which unfortunately misspells Flanagan's last name.  Click the chart to enlarge it.

It's easy to see that the second Flanagan was unable to sustain Niiya's target pace, Niiya was there ready to step up.  Except for a slightly rocky stretch between 6 and 7000 m she was incredibly steady, and take a look at the 400 m splits from 8000 to 9200 m. Three laps in a row at exactly the same speed, 1:14.15, with the next at 1:14.12.  Keep in mind that this was at PB pace while leading the late stages of a World Championships race.  

Yes, she didn't have the kick to cope with the likes of Tirunesh Dibaba, but it's hard to fault the way she strove to kill off as much competition as she could or her 30:56.70 finish in 5th.  A 2 1/2 second PB and four-place improvement over her London Olympics result, Moscow leaves her just 8 seconds off the Japanese national record and tantalizingly close to achieving what Flanagan did in Beijing and, earlier, Kara Goucher in Osaka.  With more development and more animal birth videos in her, Niiya's next two or three years should be pretty interesting.

In the meantime, give it up for what may end up as the purest guts performance of the Moscow World Championships.  

Have fun in the pet shops, Hitomi.

text (c) 2013 Brett Larner / split chart (c) 2013 Dr. Helmut Winter
all rights reserved

by Brett Larner  – Japan Running News