In one group of the Tokyo Olympics, track and field, and women's 5000m qualifying, Ririka Hironaka recorded a personal best time of 14 minutes 55 seconds 87 and finished 9th, making it the top 5 finishers who can advance to the final in order of finish. Although I didn't reach it, I was in the top 5 in terms of time, so I advanced to the final.

She jumped to the front even on the big stage.


Ririka Hironaka, 20 years old. He set a good time of 14 minutes 55 seconds 87, which was the third best time in Japan's history, and decided to advance to the final, which is the only Japanese player to advance to the final.



The start line at 7:00 pm just at sunset. Hironaka wore a hat and went to the race as usual. The hat is Hironaka's trademark, and he wears it on most occasions in both games and practice. There is also the aspect of being a test-taker who has won the game since junior high school, but the main reason is to narrow the field of vision with the brim and concentrate on "my own running". It can be said that it is the secret of Hironaka's strength.



Hironaka, who also wore a hat and participated in the race on this day, took the lead in pulling the group so as not to be confused by other players. Hironaka's creed was to carry out the race in front of him, and he decided to "believe that he had come this far and run as hard as he could from the beginning" and aggressively attacked.



The appearance of running up to 3000 meters against players who greatly exceeded their time was reminiscent of domestic races where other players did not want to run in front of them. I felt that it was an expression of Hironaka's desire to keep his strong rivals running through his opponents.



Behind this was a bitter lesson for Hironaka. That is the Japan Championship in December last year, which was held for the 5000-meter representative of the Tokyo Olympics. Rivals of the same generation, Nozomi Tanaka and Hironaka, who won, one of them is the best to get the right to participate, and Hironaka who cares too much about Tanaka behind is good at long spurts I couldn't hang it, and on the contrary, I succumbed to the last spurt of Tanaka's weapon.



He said that he lost only 1 second and 46 seconds, and after that, he couldn't run as expected, and he sometimes lost sight of his goal. Therefore, I reconsidered my strength of "tenacious running" and started again from spring by challenging 10,000 meters as part of stamina building.



This challenge further expanded the possibilities of Hironaka. In the Japan Championships, he won both the 10,000 meters and the 5000 meters, and took the representative of the Olympics in two events.



And what was symbolic in the race on the 30th was the smile before the start. There was her usual appearance, "running only looking in front", which does not change even on the big stage.



In the final on August 2nd, we will aim for even higher heights.