I had not planned to write this article. My intention was to publish a piece on the IOC’s decision to introduce a femininity test. However, during my daily visit to the World Athletics website, I came across an article by none other than P.-J. Vazel. If you follow this blog, you know I am a longtime admirer of his work. His technical articles have been a major source of inspiration for me. Since becoming the curator of the World Athletics Heritage Museum, however, he has been less visible than before. Yet it was not his name that first caught my attention, but the article’s title, which mentioned the great Kinue Hitomi—likely for the first time ever on the World Athletics homepage.
I will not retell Hitomi-san’s story here. I covered it in detail in a previous article from my series “The Long and Arduous Road of Women to the Olympics,” published four years ago. I encourage you to read it, and while you are there, to explore the accompanying piece on the first women’s Olympic 800 meters. There is also a follow-up article, written just last year, which brings new elements to the discussion of that race, including references to a possible IOC effort to limit women’s events—or at least to curtail the women’s program—based on negative interpretations of the 1928 experience.
Kinue Hitomi (1907–1931) was a pioneering Japanese athlete who, after setting a national long jump record almost by chance at a school meet in 1923, devoted herself to track and field. She went on to establish world records across multiple events, including the long jump, triple jump, 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, and standing long jump, while also working as Japan’s first female sports journalist. She was named the outstanding athlete of the 1926 Women’s World Games in Göteborg. At the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics—after her preferred events were not included in the program and she was eliminated in the 100 m semifinals—she entered the 800 m on impulse, despite never having raced the distance, and won silver in 2:17.6, becoming the first Japanese woman to earn an Olympic medal. She was the inaugural world record holder in a combined event for women, the triathlon: 100m, high jump, javelin. Alas, she fell ill after the 1930 Prague Games and died of pneumonia the following year at just 24. In my view, she stands as the greatest athlete of that era, a time when women were fighting relentlessly for their right to compete. (Sadly, a century later, that struggle is not entirely over).
Vazel’s article is not about Hitomi-san herself, but about a book she wrote at just 19. Its title is 最新女子陸上競技法 (“The Latest Methods of Women’s Track and Field Athletics”). A digitized version is available from the National Diet Library of Japan, and, being a century old, it is now in the public domain. On the second page, one finds a photograph of Her Imperial Highness Princess Nobuko—the consort of Prince Asaka and daughter of Emperor Meiji—playing golf. The third page features a portrait of the young Hitomi-san (remember that the book predates her emergence as an international star), holding in her left hand a medal won at a national championship.
I will not attempt to summarize Vazel’s article, but rather highlight a few salient points that illustrate how remarkable Hitomi-san’s book is. First, she describes the use of starting blocks, even though their invention is usually attributed to G. Bresnahan, who filed a patent in 1927—one year after her book was published. Ironically, the IAAF (the predecessor of World Athletics) banned starting blocks in 1935 and only reauthorized them in 1938, and then with restrictions. More broadly, she outlines a comprehensive program for women’s athletics, rather than the limited version reluctantly accepted by the IOC. It is worth recalling that Hitomi herself was a triple jump champion, a discipline that did not enter the Olympic program until 1996. Her proposals were grounded in a clear conviction: that women deserved proper instruction, formal rules, sound technique, and serious study. She also documents four-week Olympic training schedules and meal plans from the 1924 Paris Olympic Village, focusing on Japanese male athletes. As Vazel points out, this is “pure gold” for sports historians, as it reminds us that many of the questions we consider cutting-edge today—nutrition, recovery, session management, and adaptation to international competition—were already being examined systematically a century ago.
It is remarkable that such a modest volume—just 134 pages, not 234 as Vazel suggests—can stand as one of the earliest and most forward-looking contributions to the scientific and methodological foundations of modern athletics: it as a testament to Hitomi’s extraordinary vision of what women’s sport could become.
No comments:
Post a Comment