400 metres The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics (sport), athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor runn ...

4×400 metres relay Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

Asian Junior Athletics Championships The Asian Junior Athletics Championships (U20) (Asian Junior U20 Athletics Championships) are the Asian championships open for those of age according to junior. It is currently organized by the Asian Athletics Association.World Junior Championships. She competed at her first

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

the following year and won two bronze medals at the

Asian Championships An Asian Championship is a top level international sports competition between Asian athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. List of Championships (Summer Olympic Sports) ;Aquatics * Asian ...

. In the 2006 and 2007 seasons, she won bronze at the

2006 Asian Games 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

and two silver medals at the Asian Championships. She also helped set a new national relay record and became Japan's first ever female sprint semi-finalist at the 2007 World Championships. She was less successful at the

2008 Beijing Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nat ...

and 2009 World Championships as she was eliminated in the heats at both events. A five-time national champion in the 400 m, she has only lost once in the event at the Japanese championships, to

Satomi Kubokura is a Japanese people, Japanese track and field athlete who competes in the 200 metres, the 400 metres and the 400 m hurdles. Her personal bests are 24.32 in the 200 m achieved at Kobe on April 27, 2008; 38.12 in the 300 metres at Izumo, Shimane ...

. She mainly competes on the Japanese athletics circuit, running at the

Osaka Grand Prix The Golden Grand Prix Osaka is an international athletics competition in Osaka, Japan, held in May at the Yanmar Stadium Nagai, since 2018 under its current name. From 1996 to 2010 the event was known as the ''Osaka Grand Prix''. Formerly part o ...

, Shizuoka International and the Super Meet in Kawasaki.

Career

National champion and records

A native of

Yabuki, Fukushima is a town located in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 16,955 in 6051 households, and a population density of 280 persons per km². The total area of the town was . Geography Yabuki is located in the flatl ...

, Asami Tanno won her first international medals at the

2002 Asian Junior Athletics Championships The 2002 Asian Junior Athletics Championships was the tenth edition of the international athletics competition for Asian under-20 athletes, organised by the Asian Athletics Association. It took place from 28–31 October in Bangkok, Thailand. A to ...

, taking the 400 m silver behind

Sathi Geetha Sathi Geetha (born 5 July 1983) is an Indian track and field athlete from Palakollu, Andhra Pradesh. She is a sprinter specializing in the 400 metres. Sathi Geetha was born on 5 July 1983 in Maruteru, coming from a Telugu Hindu traditional an ...

and a bronze with the Japanese

relay team A relay race is a racing competition where members of a team take turns completing parts of racecourse or performing a certain action. Relay races take the form of professional races and amateur games. Relay races are common in running, orient ...

. After making significant improvements upon her 2003 performances, she came to prominence at the 2004 Asian Junior Athletics Championships in

Ipoh , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Ipoh in Perak , pushpin_map = #Malaysia#Asia#Earth , pushpin_mapsize = 275px , pushpin_map_caption = Ipoh in Malaysia , coordinates ...

. She set a Japanese record in the 400 m with 52.88 seconds,Nakamura, Ken (2005-06-06)
Tanno sets national 400m record – Japanese National Championships – Day 4

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

. Retrieved on 2009-09-23. a time that is still the national junior record. She also ran in the 4×100 metres relay, winning her first international gold medal.Asami Tanno Profile
. JAAF. Retrieved on 2009-09-23. Further success came at scholastic level, as she set championship records to win the 200 m and 400 m at the Japanese Inter-Collegiate Championships. She won a bronze medal in the

200 metres The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

at the

Asian Indoor Athletics Championships The Asian Indoor Athletics Championships were held for the first time in 2004 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships, 2004. Run by the Asian Athletics Association, the championships take place biennially in different cities all over Asia.

and won the 400 m events at both the

Japanese National Games The is the national premier sports event of Japan. It consists of three stages. The skating and ice hockey stage takes place in January, the skiing stage takes place in February, and the main Autumn tournament takes place in September and Octob ...

(''Kokutai'') and the national championships that year.Japanese Championships
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2009-09-23.
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2009-09-23. Also, she competed at her first World Junior Championships, reaching the final and finishing in sixth place. The following year she broke the 400 m indoor record with 53.64 seconds in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

and won the

800 metres The 800 metres, or meters ( US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of an outdoor (400-metre) track and has been an Olympic event since the ...

at the National Games.Biography Tanno, Asami

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

. Retrieved on 2009-09-23. At the national championships she came second in the 200 m to Sakie Nobuoka and she also improved her own 400 m Japanese outdoor record. After coming close to her record in the heats, she became a two time 400 m national champion with 51.93 seconds, knocking a second off her previous best. This was sufficient for qualification in the

2005 World Championships in Athletics The 10th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland (6 August 2005 – 14 August 2005), the site of the first IAAF ...

, but Tanno did not progress beyond the 400 m preliminary rounds. She rebounded, however, at the

Asian Championships An Asian Championship is a top level international sports competition between Asian athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. List of Championships (Summer Olympic Sports) ;Aquatics * Asian ...

, winning two bronze medals in the individual and relay 400 m events. Her good form continued as she finished fourth at the

2005 Summer Universiade The 2005 Summer Universiade, also known as the XXIII Summer Universiade, took place in İzmir, Turkey, in August. Emblem The emblem is the letter “U”, inspired by the bird's-eye view of the Gulf of İzmir. This shape has perfectly fit the lett ...

and set a new best at the Seiko Super Track & Field Meet (''Super Rikujyo''). At the meeting she finished with 51.80 seconds and although this was some distance behind American Dee Dee Trotter (50.03) Tanno stated that she aspired to break 51 seconds in her career too. She ended the year with a 400 m gold medal at the

2005 East Asian Games The 4th East Asian Games was an international multi-sport event for countries in East Asia which was held in Macau from October 29 to November 6, 2005. Host city At the 11th EAGA Council Meeting held in Guam in March 1996, Macau, then a Portugues ...

. In 2006, she won the

Osaka Grand Prix The Golden Grand Prix Osaka is an international athletics competition in Osaka, Japan, held in May at the Yanmar Stadium Nagai, since 2018 under its current name. From 1996 to 2010 the event was known as the ''Osaka Grand Prix''. Formerly part o ...

in May with a season's best of 51.84 seconds. Tanno did not run at the national championships finals, missing out on a third consecutive win. She competed in the

2006 IAAF World Cup The 10th IAAF World Cup in Athletics was an international track and field sporting event, held under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, which took place on 16 and 17 September 2006 at the Olympic Stadium in Athe ...

, forming part of the Asian women's

4×400 metres relay Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

team, but ended up in last place. She finished the year with an appearance at the

2006 Asian Games 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

, taking the bronze medal in the 400 m and finishing fourth in the relay.

2007 Osaka Championships and Beijing Olympics

Returning to the Osaka GP, she set a national record of 3:30.53 in the 4×400 m relay with Mayu Kida,

Satomi Kubokura is a Japanese people, Japanese track and field athlete who competes in the 200 metres, the 400 metres and the 400 m hurdles. Her personal bests are 24.32 in the 200 m achieved at Kobe on April 27, 2008; 38.12 in the 300 metres at Izumo, Shimane ...

and Makiko Yoshida, and also took second place behind

Mary Wineberg Mary Wineberg (née Danner, born January 3, 1980) is an Americans, American track and field athlete from Cincinnati, Ohio.2007 World Championships in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, and Tanno won the 400 m and pushed Sakie Nobuoka to the line in the 200 m, narrowly finishing second. A month before the World Championships, she ran the 400 m at the

Asian Championships An Asian Championship is a top level international sports competition between Asian athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. List of Championships (Summer Olympic Sports) ;Aquatics * Asian ...

, winning the silver medal behind Indian

Chitra Soman Chitra Kulathummuriyil Soman (born 10 July 1983) was born in Kottayam, Kerala. Her father is from Kottayam and her mother is from kanjirappally, Kerala. She is an Indian sprinter who specializes in the 400 metres. Soman finished seventh in 4 x ...

. She won her second silver of the competition with the Japanese 4×400 m relay, beaten to the gold again by the Indian athletes. Representing the host nation at the World Championships, she failed to reach the finals of the 400 m. However, she recorded a season's best of 51.81 seconds and succeeded in becoming the first ever Japanese woman to reach the semi-finals of a

sprinting Sprinting is running over a short distance at the top-most speed of the body in a limited period of time. It is used in many sports that incorporate running, typically as a way of quickly reaching a target or goal, or avoiding or catching an op ...

event at the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

. In the 4×400 m relay the Japanese team ( Sayaka Aoki, Tanno, Kubokura and Kida) were eliminated in the heats, but they managed a new national record of 3:30.17, improving upon the mark Tanno had helped set earlier in the season. She missed the 2008 Asian Indoor Championship in Doha and began the outdoor season with another national record, recording 51.75 seconds at the Shizuoka International in May. She was expected to improve further at the Osaka GP, but wet conditions slowed the athletes and she finished third with 52.55 seconds. At the national championships, which were also the trials for the

2008 Beijing Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nat ...

, she beat hurdles specialist Kubokura to the title and was selected to represent

Japan at the Olympics Japan first participated at the Olympic Games in 1912, and has competed at almost every Games since then. The nation was not invited to the 1948 Games after World War II, and was part of the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Mos ...

. At the Olympics in August, she recorded 52.60 seconds in the qualification rounds, which was not sufficient to progress. She returned to the track with the Japanese relay team. While their time of 3:30.52 was not far off the team's national record, it left them in eighth place at the heats stage.

2009 World Championships and 2010 Asian Games

She opened her season at the Shizuoka International, winning in a modest 53.21 seconds. Tanno repeated her performance from the previous year in the Osaka GP, taking third behind foreign opposition – Australian

Tamsyn Lewis Tamsyn Carolyn Lewis (born 20 July 1978) is an Australian media personality and former track and field athlete who won a total of eighteen Australian Championships across the 400 metres, 800 metres and 400m hurdles. She first repres ...

and American Latosha Wallace. At the Japanese Trials for the World Championships, she beat Aoki to the national title, her fifth victory at the championships in six years. Tanno could not match her 2007 performance at the 2009 World Championships and she was eliminated in the 400 m heats with a sub-par 53.30 seconds. A Japanese team of Aoki, Tanno, Sato (née Kida) and Kubokura did not perform well in the 4×400 metres relay competition, finishing last in their heat with 3:34.46. After the World Championships, she competed at the Super Meet in Kawasaki, beating off

Barbara Petráhn Barbara Petráhn (born 16 September 1978 in Sopron) is a Hungarian track and field sprinter who specializes in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres. An 11 time Hungarian Athletics Championships winner in 400 metres, Petráhn matched the ...

and Maris Magi to win the 400 m. She was married in February 2010. She failed to defend her national title in 2010 after suffering injuries earlier in the season, leaving

Chisato Tanaka is a Japanese retired track and field sprinter. She won a bronze medal in the 400 metres and a gold medal in the 4 × 400 metres relay at the 2011 Asian Championships in Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefectu ...

to take the victory. She represented Asia at the

2010 IAAF Continental Cup The 1st IAAF Continental Cup was an international track and field sporting event held under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations. Originally scheduled as the 11th IAAF World Cup in Athletics, it was renamed in 200 ...

, but finished last in the 400 m. She won the silver medal at the

2010 Asian Games The 2010 Asian Games (), officially known as the XVI Asian Games () and also known as Guangzhou 2010 (), was a regional multi-sport event celebrated from November 12 to November 27, 2010 in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, although several events ...

, although the Japanese team missed out on a relay medal as they finished in fourth.Three more gold for China, as Kamel bows out of 1500m in Guangzhou – Asian Games, Day 2

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

(2010-11-23). Retrieved on 2010-11-28.

Personal bests

* All information taken from IAAF profile.

Competition record

* Japanese national 400 m champion: 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chiba, Asami 1985 births Living people Japanese female sprinters Sportspeople from Fukushima Prefecture Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes of Japan Asian Games medalists in athletics (track and field) Athletes (track and field) at the 2006 Asian Games Athletes (track and field) at the 2010 Asian Games Athletes (track and field) at the 2014 Asian Games World Athletics Championships athletes for Japan Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Asian Games bronze medalists for Japan Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Medalists at the 2014 Asian Games 20th-century Japanese women 21st-century Japanese women