Yoko Shibui
Yoko Shibui is a long-distance runner from Japan, who is competing in the 5000 and 10,000 metres as well as the marathon race. She holds the List of Japanese [records in athletics|Japanese record] over 10,000 m with her best time of 30:48.89 minutes. Shibui is one of only a handful of women to have completed the marathon under two hours and twenty minutes – her personal best of 2:19.41 ranks her within the top ten fastest ever.
She made a winning debut in the marathon in 2001, when she triumphed at the Osaka Ladies Marathon in 2:23:11 hours. She finished fourth at the 2001 [World Championships in Athletics|2001 World Championships] in Edmonton. At the next global championships, the 2003 World [Championships in Athletics|2003 World Championships] in Paris, she finished fourteenth in the 10,000 metres. One year later Shibui won the Berlin Marathon, clocking a personal best of 2:19:41.
In 2008, she finished seventeenth in the 10,000 metres at the Athletics at the [2008 Summer Olympics – Women's 10,000 metres|Olympic Games]. Shibui won both the Osaka Ladies Marathon and the San Francisco Marathon in 2009. At the 2011 Tokyo Marathon she was in a leading position with only two kilometres to go but slowed to relinquish her lead, ending up in fourth place. She tried to gain a place on the 2012 Olympic marathon team, but her fourth-place finish at the 2012 Nagoya Women's Marathon was not enough for selection.