Maho Hanaoka ( ja, 花岡麻帆; born 3 August 1976) is a Japanese former

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

athlete who competed mainly in the

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

and

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

. She is one of Japan's best female athletes in the horizontal jumps: she holds the Japanese records for the triple jump outdoors with and is also the record holder in both the long and triple jump indoors. Her long jump best of is a former Japanese record, second to

Kumiko Ikeda is a Japanese long jumper. She won bronze medals at the 2000 World Junior Championships and the 2001 Summer Universiade, and finished eleventh at the 2001 World Championships. On the regional level she won a bronze medal at the 2005 Asian Cha ...

. Her greatest international performance was a long jump gold medal at the

2006 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships The 2006 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships was an international indoor athletics event took place in Pattaya, Thailand, between 10 and 12 February. This was the first edition to be hosted in the country. A total of 24 nations sent athletes to c ...

, where she set a

championship record The sports under the umbrella of athletics, particularly track and field, use a variety of statistics. In order to report that information efficiently, numerous abbreviations have grown to be common in the sport. Starting in 1948 by Bert Nelson a ...

. She was the long jump runner-up at the

2002 Asian Games The 2002 Asian Games ( ko, 2002년 아시아 경기대회/2002년 아시안 게임, Icheoni-nyeon Asia gyeonggi daehoe/Icheoni-nyeon Asian Geim), officially known as the XIV Asian Games ( ko, 제14회 아시아 경기대회/제14회 아시안 � ...

and a three-time bronze medallist at the

Asian Athletics Championships The Asian Athletics Championships is an event organized by the Asian Athletics Association. History The competition courted controversy with the IAAF when political in-fighting arose after Israel was excluded from participation in 1977. That e ...

. She won medal in both jumps at the

2001 East Asian Games The 3rd East Asian Games were held in Osaka, Japan from May 19, 2001, to May 27, 2001. Sports The 2001 East Asian Games featured events in 15 sports, which was a new high for the competition. *Aquatic sports, Aquatics () ** Swimming (sport), S ...

. At the global level Hanaoka represented Japan at the

2004 Olympic Games The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

, the

2001 World Championships in Athletics The 8th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada between 3 August and 12 August and was the first time the event ...

, twice at the

IAAF World Indoor Championships The World Athletics Indoor Championships are a biennial indoor track and field competition served as the global championship for that version of the sport. Organised by the World Athletics, the competition was inaugurated as the ''World Indoor G ...

(1999 and 2006), and twice at the

Summer Universiade The Universiade is an international multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the International University Sports Federation (FISU). The name is a portmanteau of the words "University" and "Olympiad". The Universiade is referred t ...

(1995 and 1999). At national level she was a five-time Japanese long jump champion and won five triple jump national titles. In her career she won seven times in the jumps at the

National Sports Festival of Japan 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 ...

Career

Early life

Born in Komuro,

Funabashi is a city located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 644,668 in 309,238 households and a population density of . The total area of the city is . It is the Greater Tokyo Area's 7th most populated city (after p ...

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to the ...

, she attended high school in

Narita, Chiba is a city in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 131,852 in 63,098 households and a population density of 620 persons per km². The total area of the city is . It is the site of Narita International Airport, one o ...

and later went on to study at

Juntendo University is a private university in Japan. Its headquarters are on its campus in Bunkyo, Tokyo, for the School of Medicine and in Inzai, Chiba, for the School of Health and Sports Science. The university was established in 1838 for medical and in 1946 f ...

. She began competing in long jump and triple jump as a teenager and by 1994 she had cleared six metres and twelve metres in the events, respectively.花岡　麻帆 Maho Hanaoka
Japan Association of Athletics Federations. Retrieved on 2013-12-30. She won her first national title at the

Japan Championships in Athletics The is an annual outdoor track and field competition, organized by Japan Association of Athletics Federations. Currently it takes place in June or July. The competition is also for the qualifying trial for the Japanese national team of internatio ...

at the age of seventeen, taking the long jump crown.Japanese Championships
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2013-12-31. Hanaoka made her international debut later that year and placed eighth at the

1994 Asian Games The 1994 Asian Games ( ja, 1994年アジア競技大会, ''Senkyūhyakukyūjūyon-nen Ajia kyōgi taikai''), also known as the XII Asiad and the 12th Asian Games ( ja, 第12回アジア競技大会, Daijūni-kai Ajia kyōgi taikai), were held from ...

. She represented Japan at the 1995 Universiade, but it was not until 1997 that she placed among the top athletes nationally, coming second in the triple jump and fourth in the long jump. At the

, she won her first triple title with a jump of .Japanese National Games
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2013-12-31.

Triple and long jump medals

Hanaoka was second to Seiko Nishiuchi at the 1998 Japanese Championships, but she was still selected to compete internationally after clearing a Japanese record of . At the

1998 Asian Games The 1998 Asian Games (), officially known as the 13th Asian Games and the XIII Asiad, was an Asian multi-sport event celebrated in Bangkok, Thailand from December 6 to 20, 1998, with 377 events in 36 sports and disciplines participated by 6,554 ...

she was seventh and the

1998 Asian Athletics Championships The 12th Asian Championships in Athletics were held in Fukuoka, Japan in July 1998. Medal summary Men Women Medal table See also *1998 in athletics (track and field) External linksGBR Athletics {{asian athletics champs Asian Athlet ...

saw her win her first medal for Japan, a bronze with her jump of .Asian Championships
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2013-12-31. After an indoor national record of in February,Maho Hanaoka
Tilastopaja. Retrieved on 2013-12-31. she made her global senior debut at the

1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships The 7th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held in the Green Dome Maebashi stadium in Maebashi, Japan from March 5 to March 7, 1999. It was the first time the Championships were staged outside Europe or North America. Primo Nebiolo, ...

, but finished in last place in the triple jump. She was ninth in the long jump at the 1999 Universiade, but did not get past the qualifiers of the triple jump. She greatly improved her personal best at the national championships that year, setting a national record of . She was also the triple jump champion at the 1999 National Games. Hanaoka set a personal best in the long jump at the

2000 Asian Athletics Championships The 13th Asian Athletics Championships were held in Jakarta, Indonesia in late August 2000. Results Men Women Medals table Participation See also *2000 in athletics (track and field) External linksGBR Athletics 2001 East Asian Games The 3rd East Asian Games were held in Osaka, Japan from May 19, 2001, to May 27, 2001. Sports The 2001 East Asian Games featured events in 15 sports, which was a new high for the competition. *Aquatic sports, Aquatics () ** Swimming (sport), S ...

. For the second time in her career she broke a national record to win at the Japanese Championships, this time in the long jump with a mark of . She defended her national long jump title but was runner-up to

at the National Games. The

was her first global outdoor selection, but she did not get past the long jump heats.Maho Hanaoka
IAAF. Retrieved on 2013-12-31. She took a third straight jumps double at the 2002 Japanese Championships and won the National Games triple jump title as well. The

was her biggest meet that year and she came away with the long jump silver medal (behind India's

Anju Bobby George Anju Bobby George (born 19 April 1977) is a retired Indian athlete. Anju Bobby George made history when she won the bronze medal in long jump at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics in Paris. With this achievement, she became the first In ...

) and came fifth in the triple jump. In 2003, she set a national indoor long jump record of as well as a

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 ...

personal best of 23.91 seconds. She won a third straight triple jump title at the National Games and was the long jump winner at the

Oda Memorial is one of the international athletic games, which takes place every April at Hiroshima Big Arch stadium in Hiroshima, Japan. In 1967, this game began to commemorate the feat of Mikio Oda, a native of Hiroshima and the first Japanese Olympic gold ...

and

Japanese Corporate Track and Field Championships Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

. She came away with no titles at the National Championships, where she was second to Ikeda in the long jump. Her 2004 opened with a

100 metres The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been conteste ...

best of 11.72 seconds and she ranked first in both jumps at that year's national championships. This earned Hanaoka her debut performance at the

2004 Athens Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

, where she placed 33rd in the qualifying stage. A knee injury forced her to change her focus to just the long jump after 2004, as her body struggled with higher impact of the triple jump event.

Focus on long jump

At the 2005 Japanese Championships she had the second best long jump performance of her career with a clearance of . Her rival Kumiko Ikeda matched this, however, and Hanaoka was runner-up by merit of a lesser second jump. Both represented Japan at the

2005 Asian Athletics Championships The 2005 Asian Athletics Championships were the 16th edition of the international athletics competition between Asian nations. It was held in Incheon, South Korea between 1–4 September 2005. Results Men * The original bronze medalist, An ...

, but while Ikeda reached the podium Hanaoka managed only eighth place. She did win the National Games title that year. The first international gold medal of her career came at the

as she beat India's Bobby George in the long jump with a

of . This led to her selection for the

2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships The 11th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was held in Moscow from March 10 to March 12, 2006 in the Olimpiyski Sport arena. The announcement by the IA ...

, where she competed in the qualifying round only. She was again bested at the national championships by Ikeda (who broke Hanaoka's long jump national record that season), but won at the National Games. Her third international outing of the year was 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 she came seventh, while Ikeda won the gold medal.2006 Asian Games - Women's Long Jump Final
Doha 2006. Retrieved on 2014-01-01. She competed sparingly from 2007 onwards, failing to reach the top ten at the Japanese Championships after that point. She was runner-up at the Japanese National Games in 2008, 2009 and 2010 – the latter was her final year of top level athletic competition.

Personal bests

– 11.72 seconds *

– 23.91 seconds *

Long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

– 6.82 metres (former national record) *

Triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

– 14.04 metres *Long jump indoor – 6.57 metres *Triple jump indoor – 13.27 metres

Competition record

;National titles *Long jump (5): 1994, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 *Triple jump (5): 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanaoka, Maho Living people 1976 births People from Funabashi Sportspeople from Chiba Prefecture Japanese female long jumpers Japanese female triple jumpers Japanese female sprinters Olympic female long jumpers Olympic athletes of Japan Athletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Asian Games medalists in athletics (track and field) Athletes (track and field) at the 1994 Asian Games Athletes (track and field) at the 1998 Asian Games Athletes (track and field) at the 2002 Asian Games Athletes (track and field) at the 2006 Asian Games Medalists at the 2002 Asian Games World Athletics Championships athletes for Japan Japan Championships in Athletics winners 20th-century Japanese women 21st-century Japanese women