Talk:Koji Ito

non-West African descent
Currently the article says he:

 became only the second athlete of non-West African descent to clock a legal and recognizable (+1.9 wind; not at high altitude) time of 10.00 seconds, during a semi-final heat.

By the normal definition of West African, Frank Fredericks is of non-West African descent. This would make Koji the third such.

Ordinary Person (talk) 04:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * To the above, "West African" is simply on how you define the area. Namibia was formerly called South West Africa.  Yes it is significantly further south of the other countries one generally regards as West Africa, the equatorial region as defined by the U.N.  And even to that, the majority of the folks you are associating to that heritage, are ones who whose ancestors were only generally removed from the region as slaves, hundreds of years ago.  But to draw an ethnic distinction based on a minor geographic difference, vs an ocean away and to say that means anything is a far reach. Trackinfo (talk) 16:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

To the fact of Ito achieving a 10.00. I know many would love to believe it to be so and to then report the milestone discussed above. Naturally we would want to report a remarkable performance, but for us to report something so exceptional, we also need to verify its truth. There has been a great deal of reporting of the 10.00. But as I have sourced, the actual meet results that are still currently posted on line, do not show he achieved a 10.00 in that race. Nor can we find any other race where he achieved it. IAAF may have bought into this same remarkable report and it has been repeated many times since. Someone added a youtube video of the race, posting instant results of 10.00--perhaps where the error in reporting resulted. I would suggest we should go to the original source. Official results are what is reported after a photo timer is reviewed by the experts, not what TV reports moments after a race. If the people who were there, in a position to know, choose to modify those results, then we have something remarkable to report. As of now, the fact is Ito was close to the milestone, but did not get there. Trackinfo (talk) 16:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)