名古屋国際女子マラソン（Nagoya kokusai joshi marason）

They say March 8 is kokusai josei de (国際女性デー) International Women's Day. So here are some women's news today.
There was the 30th Nagoya kokusai joshi marason (名古屋国際女子マラソン), the 2009 Nagoya International Women's Marathon today. The new heroine was born. Her name is Yoshiko Fujinaga (藤永佳子), 27 years old. For her this was the first marathon and she became the winner. Her time was 2 hours 28 minutes 13 seconds. By becoming a champion, she got the ticket to participate in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics（世界陸上選手権：sekai rikujo senshuken）in Berlin this August. When she was a high school student, she attended the World Championships in Seville, Spain in 1999 to run 5,000 meters. It's been 10 years since then.
In this Nagoya race, there was another heroine too. That is Naoko Takahashi (高橋尚子) who was the gold medalist in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She has won the Nagoya race twice in 1998 and 2000. Last October she announced she would retire. This race became her last run. Her result was 29th with the time of 2 hours 52 minutes 23 seconds. She ran smiling and thanking to the 700,000 fans along the road.

There was the women's dual mogul event at the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in Inawashiro today. Aiko Uemura (上村愛子) who got the gold medal yesterday got another gold medal today. The silver medalist was also Japanese. Her name is Miki Ito (伊藤みき). She also got the ticket to participate in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. This will be her second Olympics.

Congratulations!