Nineteen-year-old Momoka Horikawa won the women's 3,000 meters at the speed skating national championships Thursday, stopping Miho Takagi's domestic winning run in the distance that started in December 2015.
Horikawa rewrote her personal best time by clocking 4 minutes, 4.66 seconds at the YS Arena Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture to edge multi-distance star Takagi by 0.41 seconds.
"Hopefully, I can start my own era of dominance," said Horikawa, who finished 10th at the Beijing Olympics this year as she made the games debut as a high school student.
"I'm not going to be satisfied with this time, and I hope to become a skater who can compete on the world stage."
While Horikawa claimed the title, keeping her lap time below 33 seconds, Takagi said she lacked the "desire" to skate faster in the distance.
"I could feel the strong resolve from Horikawa," said the 28-year-old Takagi. "Having someone you can compete with will make the speed skating world interesting."
Takagi cruised to win the 500, nevertheless, as the Beijing silver medalist in the distance logged 37.94, some 0.63 seconds ahead of second-place Kurumi Inagawa.
