Sin Kim-dan

Kim Shin - dan, dan or even Sin Kim Shin Geum -dan ( born July 3, 1938), is a North Korean athlete who had attended as a sprinter and middle distance runner for a splash in the early 1960s. She ran times that anmuteten then unlikely:

• 400 m: 1962, she went this route as the first woman on earth is less than 52 seconds. Until then, the Belarusian Marija Itkina 53.4 s ( 1959) was the fastest. On October 21, 1964 she succeeded in Shanghai even an improvement to 51.2 s
• 800 m: In 1961, it achieved a 2:01,2 a time which was under the former world record of Lyudmila Shevtsova more than three seconds min. In 1963 she ran with 1:59,1 min as the first woman in the world, the 800 -meter track in less than 2 minutes. A year later, she expressed this record 1:58,0 min and was faster than in 1971 Hildegard Falck.

This brilliant times, but were not officially recognized, and for two reasons:

• North Korea was not a member of the IAAF
• Kim Shin -dans gender status was controversial.

As early as 1963 at a start in Moscow, Soviet athletes had refused, with Kim Shin -dan to run in a group, because she looked like a man. Shortly thereafter, it was said, a South Koreans have recognized his son in the war separated from him in it.

From participation in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 North Korea as well as North Vietnam, South Africa, Indonesia and the People's Republic of China excluded. In 1966, gender controls at international championships mandatory, which could be an explanation for the withdrawal from active Shins competitive sport.

Thus, the first official 400 - meter race of a woman dated in less than 52 seconds until the year 1969, when the two Frenchwomen Nicole Duclos and Colette Besson the finals at the European Championships in 1969 in Athens at the same time in 51.7 s finished. About 800 m the 2- minute barrier was officially even until 1971 ( 1:58,3 min ) broken by Hildegard Falck.