Saturday, November 3, 2012

Track Beauty of the Week: Ayako Kimura 木村 文子

Ayako Kimura 木村 文子 is this week's Track Beauty!

Photo from JAAF.org
Kimura is an elite-level Japanese hurdler. She has a personal best of 13.04s in the 100m hurdles, [1] set in April 2012. Ayako was just four-hundredths of a second from Yvonne Kanazawa's 金沢 イボンヌ 12-year old national senior record and one-hundredth of a second faster than Asuka Terada's 寺田 明日香 career best performance in 2009. 


Ayako's breakout year came in 2010, when she lowered her 2009 best of 13.74s to 13.28s. [2] Her improvement has been gradual in the subsequent years, running 13.19s in 2011 before her impressive performance in Hiroshima last April.


However, the Japanese champion failed to replicate her form at the London Olympic Games. Kimura crashed out of the heats with a below-par clocking of 13.75s. Nevertheless, the future looks bright for the promising Kimura. She has a relatively clean and straighforward hurdling technique, with none of the glaring technical deficiencies common amongst her peers. The London Olympics, after all, was just her first appearance in the world stage.

Ayako Kimura could be the next big thing in Asian hurdling.

References
  1. "Ayako Kimura." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayako_Kimura. Retrieved 11-3-2012.
  2. "木村 文 子 Ayako Kimura." http://www.jaaf.or.jp/fan/player/wom083.php. Retrieved 11-3-2012.

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