Maho Hanaoka

Maho Hanaoka (; born 3 August 1976) is a Japanese former track and field athlete who competed mainly in the long jump and triple jump. 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.

Her greatest international performance was a long jump gold medal at the 2006 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships, where she set a championship record. She was the long jump runner-up at the 2002 Asian Games and a three-time bronze medallist at the Asian Athletics Championships. She won medal in both jumps at the 2001 East Asian Games.

At the global level Hanaoka represented Japan at the 2004 Olympic Games, the 2001 World Championships in Athletics, twice at the IAAF World Indoor Championships (1999 and 2006), and twice at the Summer Universiade (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.

Career Early life Born in Komuro, Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, she attended high school in Narita, Chiba and later went on to study at Juntendo University. 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. She won her first national title at the Japan Championships in Athletics at the age of seventeen, taking the long jump crown. Hanaoka made her international debut later that year and placed eighth at the 1994 Asian Games. 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.

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 she was seventh and the 1998 Asian Athletics Championships saw her win her first medal for Japan, a bronze with her jump of . After an indoor national record of in February, she made her global senior debut at the 1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships, 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 was also the triple jump champion at the 1999 National Games. 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 Kumiko Ikeda at the National Games. She took a third straight jumps double at the 2002 Japanese Championships and won the National Games triple jump title as well. and came fifth in the triple jump.

In 2003, she set a national indoor long jump record of as well as a 200 metres 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 and Japanese Corporate Track and Field Championships. This earned Hanaoka her debut performance at the 2004 Athens Olympics, 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. She did win the National Games title that year. This led to her selection for the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships, where she competed in the qualifying round only. but won at the National Games.

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 100 metres – 11.72 seconds 200 metres – 23.91 seconds Long jump – 6.82 metres (former national record) Triple jump – 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