Tajima Naoto

Award ceremony in the long jump: middle Jesse Owens , left: Tajima, right: Luz Long

Tajima Naoto ( Japanese 田島 直 人 ; born August 15, 1912 in Iwakuni ; † December 4, 1990 ) was a Japanese athlete and Olympic champion. He was the first triple jumper who reached the width of 16 meters. With a height of 1.78 m, he had a competition weight of 67 kg.

Tajima made his Olympic debut at the 1932 Olympic Games when he finished sixth in the long jump with 7.15 m. In 1934 he won the long jump at the Far Eastern Games and came third in the triple jump.

At the Olympic Games in 1936 , the final in the long jump was held on August 4th. Behind the American Jesse Owens (8.06 m) and the German Luz Long (7.87 m) Tajima won bronze with 7.74 m. He was one centimeter ahead of the two fourth placed, the German Wilhelm Leichum and the Italian Arturo Maffei .

On August 6, 1936, the triple jump final was on the agenda. The qualifying distance of 14 meters was exceeded by 23 athletes, including the Australian world record holder Jack Metcalfe , who jumped 15.78 m at the end of 1935. After three attempts, 17 athletes were eliminated, including Luz Long. After the preliminary fight, Tajima was in the lead with 15.76 m, followed by Metcalfe with 15.50 m and the second Japanese Masao Harada with 15.45 m. In the fourth attempt, Tajima then jumped the world record mark and landed at 16.00 m. In the last attempt, Harada jumped 15.66 m and secured silver.

Tajima jumped 14.81 m again in 1938 and then ended his career. He was director of the Japanese Amateur Sports Association in later years. His world record was beaten by one centimeter in 1951 by the Brazilian Adhemar Ferreira da Silva . Tajima Naoto was the third Japanese triple jump Olympic champion in a row. Three days after Tajima, the Korean-born Japanese Son Kitei won a marathon for Japan. After that, Japan stopped winning gold medals in Olympic track and field until 2000, when marathon runner Naoko Takahashi won gold in Sydney.

Web links

• Tajima Naoto in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Tajima is the family name, Naoto the first name.