Kim Smith

KIM SMITH
NEW ZEALAND

BIRTHDATE:
19 November 1981

PERSONAL BEST:

CAREER NOTES:

Kim Smith holds seven indoor and outdoor Oceania
records for track events ranging from 1500m to
10,000m but her one previous excursion into
marathon running was not a success.

After a brilliant year on the track in 2008, when
she set four area records and finished ninth over
10,000m at the Beijing Olympics, Smith entered the
New York marathon with great hopes. But, hampered
by a cold, she felt sick after a mile and was
forced to pull out after 30km.

Smith ran 5000m for New Zealand at the 2004
Olympics in Athens finishing 11th in her heat. In
2005 she won the World University Games and
placed 15th over 10,000m at the World Championships
as well as setting a national 5000m record
outdoors and her first Oceania record at the same
distance indoors.

The following year she was fourth at 5000m at the
World Cup and broke her own national record to go
under 15 minutes for the first time in Brussels.
The New Zealand records kept coming in 2007, over
5000m and 10,000m, and she was fifth for 10,000m
at the World Championships in Osaka. She also set
an area record indoors for 3000m.

In 2008, she began with more records, running
9:13.94 for two miles at the Boston Indoor Games
and 4:24.14 for one mile, also in Boston. Outdoors
she lowered Oceania records for 5000m (14:45.93
in Rome) and 10,000m (30:35.54 in Stanford), and
was ninth in the Olympic 10,000m final before her
ill-fated attempt at the marathon.

She was at it again last year, reducing her indoor
5000m record to 14:39.89 and setting a New Zealand
5km best of 15:27 at the adidas Women’s 5km in
Hyde Park last September.

She was also eighth in the world 10,000m final in
Berlin and seventh at the World Half Marathon
Championships in Birmingham where she ran
another New Zealand record, 69:35.

She was also a runaway winner of the Bupa London
10k last May in a PB 31:38, beating the Olympic
marathon champion Constantina Dita.

She has started 2010 with yet another record – she
ran 67:55 to finish just three seconds behind Berhane
Adere at the Rock ‘n’Roll half marathon in New Orleans
on 28 February breaking her own New Zealand
record by 1min 40secs.

PERSONAL NOTES:

Smith comes from Papakura in New Zealand but
now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she is
coached by Ray Treacy. She is a social science
graduate of Providence College.

She wants to run around 2:25 in London and hopes
to be able to challenge the world’s best by the 2012
Olympics. “The only reason to run the marathon is to
compete with the top women in the world,” she says.