Hiromasa Tanaka (Japanese: 田中宏昌; born 28 September 1981) is a Japanese decathlete. He won five straight national…
Hiromasa Tanaka (Japanese: 田中宏昌; born 28 September 1981) is a Japanese decathlete. He won five straight national decathlon titles from 2004 to 2008 and was the gold medallist in the event at the 2009 Asian Athletics Championships. He also represented Japan at the 2007 World Championships. Hailing from Ōbatake, Yamaguchi, Tanaka established himself domestically with back-to-back decathlon wins at the Japanese Athletics Championships in 2004 and 2005. On his first international appearance, he won the bronze medal at the 2005 Asian Athletics Championships, finishing behind Pavel Andreev and Kim Kun-Woo. He took a third consecutive national title in 2006, a winning streak that would continue until 2009 when he was beaten by Daisuke Ikeda. At the 2006 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships he missed out on a medal in the indoor heptathlon, although he achieved 5340 points in his first major outing in the event. He scored a personal best total of 7803 points for decathlon in Kanazawa in June 2006, but at his first Asian Games that year he was far off this form and, after he failed to produce a mark in the pole vault, he finished in tenth place. As the reigning national champion, Tanaka gained selection for the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, held in Osaka, and he finished in 19th place overall. Tanaka won his first indoor medal at the 2008 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships, taking the bronze at the event in Doha. In the absence of Dmitriy Karpov and the defending champion Ahmed Hassan Moussa, he won the 2009 Asian Athletics Championships. He missed the 2010 Asian Games.
Famous Alumni of Takamizu High School
Takamizu High School: 3 people
Kiyoko Shimahara (嶋原 清子; born 22 December 1976) is a Japanese long-distance runner who competes in marathon races. Her…
Kiyoko Shimahara (嶋原 清子; born 22 December 1976) is a Japanese long-distance runner who competes in marathon races. Her personal best time is 2:25:10 hours, achieved in August 2009 in Sapporo. She is a member of the Second Wind running club in Japan. She represented her country at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics and at the Asian Games in 2006 and 2010 (winning the silver medal at the former edition). Born in the Ōshima District in Yamaguchi Prefecture, she attended Kokushikan University and graduated in 1999 with a degree in physical education. She made her debut over the marathon distance at the Japanese student championships in 1997. Her first marathon victory came at the 2003 Katsuta Marathon, where she ran a course record time of 2:31:10 hours. She came third at the Tokyo Marathon in 2003, then improved to second place behind Bruna Genovese at the same competition the following year, setting a personal best of 2:26:43 hours in the process. Shimahara improved further at the 2005 Hokkaido Marathon, running 2:26:14 and taking the runner-up spot. In 2006, opened her season with a personal best of 1:10:16 hours at the Miyazaki Half Marathon, then came third at the Osaka Ladies Marathon. She made her foreign debut at the Boston Marathon, where she finished in fifth place. She gained her first international call-up for Japan at the 2006 Asian Games and she was the marathon silver medallist behind China's Zhou Chunxiu. These performances led to her being selected for the Japanese women's marathon squad at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics. She finished sixth at the World Championships Marathon in Osaka. At the 2007 London Marathon, she withdrew mid-race for the first time, pulling up just after the halfway point due to breathing difficulties. At the start of 2008 she came eleventh at the Nagoya Marathon, but rebounded at the Chicago Marathon with a third-place finish to reach the podium. Shimahara ended her year with a win at the Honolulu Marathon in a time of 2:32:36 hours. Despite a sixth-place finish at the Tokyo Marathon, the 2009 season proved to be one of Shimahara's most successful. She won the Osaka Half Marathon then set a course record and personal best of 2:25:10 hours to win at the Hokkaido Marathon in Sapporo. She was the runner-up at both the Yokohama Marathon and the Honolulu race that year. Shimahara was fourth at the 2010 Nagano Marathon and was selected to compete for Japan at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. However, she did not win a medal on her second performance at the Games, finishing fifth overall. In 2011, she was the runner-up at the Hokkaido Marathon and the inaugural Osaka Marathon. She also ran at the Tokyo Marathon that year but placed fifteenth in that race. She had only one outing in 2012: at the Osaka Marathon she came fifth in a time of 2:29:51 hours. A year passed before she returned to competition, again in Osaka, and she managed third on that occasion.
Kenshi Hirokane (Japanese: 弘兼 憲史, Hepburn: Hirokane Kenshi; born September 9, 1947) is a Japanese manga artist from…
Kenshi Hirokane (Japanese: 弘兼 憲史, Hepburn: Hirokane Kenshi; born September 9, 1947) is a Japanese manga artist from Iwakuni, Yamaguchi. He graduated from Waseda University with a degree in law, then worked for Matsushita Electric for four years, before making his manga debut in 1974 with Kaze Kaoru. Hirokane is known for manga that addresses social issues, as well as for creating the best-selling seinen manga Hello Harinezumi, adapted as an original video animation (OVA) called Domain of Murder. He has received numerous awards, including the 1985 Shogakukan Manga Award for seinen/general manga as the artist for Human Crossing, the 1991 Kodansha Manga Award for general manga for Kachō Kōsaku Shima, and an Excellence Prize for manga at the 2000 Japan Media Arts Festival for Tasogare Ryūseigun ("Like Shooting Stars in the Twilight"). He is married to manga artist Fumi Saimon. They have a son and a daughter.