In the women's 1,500 meters, Miho Takagi broke her own tournament record with a time of 1 minute, 53.34 seconds, winning her 7th straight title. rice field.

The All Japan Distance Championship, which will be the domestic opening match of this season of speed skating, will be held for three days from the 21st at M-Wave in Nagano City.



Among the events held on the 21st, Takagi, the world record holder of this event and silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics this February, participated in the women's 1500 meters.



Takagi skated in the same group as Ayano Sato, who finished 4th in the event in Beijing.



Takagi showed speed from the beginning of the race, and when he passed the first half of the 700m with the fastest time overall, he maintained his laps in the second half with his characteristic endurance, breaking his own tournament record by 1.25 seconds, 1 minute 53 minutes. Finishing in 34 seconds, he won the tournament for the 7th time in a row with a difference of more than 3 seconds from the 2nd place.



Sato was second with a time of 1:56.55.



In the men's 500 meters, Uma Murakami, who holds the record for the event in Japan and finished eighth at the Beijing Games, won the event for the third time in two years with a time of 34.79 seconds.



At the Beijing Games of this event, Shigeko Mori, who won the bronze medal, was unable to get up to speed in the second half, which he is good at, and finished 3rd in 34.84 seconds.

Miho Takagi "I was purely happy"

Miho Takagi said, ``I'm just happy that I was able to set this lap at this time at this rink.



Regarding the fist pose after the finish, based on the episode with her older sister Nana, who retired from racing at the end of last season and is now a commentator for this tournament, she said, "My sister said, 'If you get a good time, do a fist pose.' When I finished, I remembered that I was being beaten, and I made a fist pump,” he said with a smile.

Uma Murakami "I'm happy to be able to concentrate on accumulated beliefs and win"

Uma Murakami reflected, “I was not feeling well, and it was to be expected that I had a bad start. Even so, I believed in my accumulation and concentrated on skating with all my strength.



Murakami left the national team of the Japan Skating Federation and went to Canada alone for two months from the beginning of August this year. I trained in



Murakami said, ``I was able to absorb a lot of things by practicing various ideas.

Wataru Morishige "I was overstretched and couldn't get the strength I wanted."

Ko Morishige said, "I was able to concentrate until the race started, but I felt pressure because other riders were setting good times. was