Naoko Takahashi is a Japanese retired long-distance runner and Olympic gold medal-winning marathoner. She won the gold medal in the marathon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and at the 2001 Berlin Marathon she became the first woman to complete a marathon in under 2 hours and 20 minutes. Naoko Takahashi set the women's marathon world record of 2:19:46 in Berlin Marathon on September 30, 2001. It stood 7 days, until Catherine Ndereba's 2:18:47 on October 7, 2001. Wiki link