| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Taeko Takeba |
| Nationality |  Japan |
| Born | 16 June 1966 Kobe, Japan |
| Height | 1.59 m (5 ft 2+1⁄2 in) |
| Weight | 66 kg (146 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Shooting |
| Event | Trap (TR75) |
| Club | Ehime Clay Shooting Association[1] |
| Coached by | Atsushi Otsuke[1] |
Taeko Takeba (竹葉 多重子, Takeba Taeko, born June 16, 1966 in Kobe) is a Japanese trap shooter.[2] She won a gold medal in the women's trap at the 2001 ISSF World Cup final in Doha, Qatar, achieved a fifth-place finish at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, and represented her nation Japan in two editions of the Olympic Games (2000 and 2004).[1][3] During her sporting career, Takeba trained full-time for the Ehime Clay Shooting Association under her personal coach Atsushi Otsuke[1][3]
Takeba made her official debut at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, where she wound up to sixteenth in the inaugural women's trap with a score of 56 hits, narrowly escaping from the last spot in a field of seventeen shooters by four points.[4][5]
Shortly after the Games, Takeba rose to a sporting fame with a gold medal victory over Russian shooter and world record holder Elena Tkach at the 2001 ISSF World Cup final with a remarkable score of 88 targets.[3]
At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Takeba qualified for her second Japanese squad, as a 38-year-old, in the women's trap by attaining a minimum score of 68 and securing an Olympic ticket from the 2002 ISSF World Cup series in Shanghai, China.[1][6] Improving her position from the previous Games, she amassed a total score of 59 hits out of 75 targets in the qualifying stage, but narrowly missed the final round by a single-point deficit with an eighth-place finish.[7][8]