Mayumi Narita, a 15-year-old high school student, and Kaede Hinata, who have won 15 gold medals at the Paralympics, have been appointed as representatives of the Tokyo Paralympics for swimming.
The Japanese national team for parasports has a quota for 27 people to participate in the Tokyo tournament, and three people who won the adult world championship and five people who exceeded the dispatch criteria at the selection meeting held until the 23rd have already been nominated as representatives. doing.
As a result of the Japan Paralympic Swimming Federation and the Japan Intellectually Handicapped Swimming Federation holding a selection committee for the remaining 19 people, 15 new people were announced on the 24th.
Of these, in the motor dysfunction class, Narita, who has won the most 15 gold medals in the Paralympics so far, has decided to participate in the Paralympic Games for the sixth time, as well as 14-year-old up-and-coming player Miyuki Yamada. Fresh faces such as 15-year-old Hinata were also selected.
In addition, veteran Takuro Yamada, who will participate in the Paralympics for the fifth consecutive tournament, and Mikika Serizawa, a class with intellectual disabilities, have also been nominated as representatives.
In addition, four players, including Daiki Kubo, will be put on hold and will be appointed as representatives once the classification to determine the degree of disability is completed.
On the other hand, eight people, including Mei Ichinose, the representative of the Rio de Janeiro Games, have been decided to be in the vacancy.
15 people who have been appointed as representatives
There are 15 people who have been appointed as representatives of the Paralympic Games and the Tokyo Paralympics.
Boys
Tomotarou Nakamura
Kaede Hinata
Takuro Yamada
Motoki Saito
Girls
Miyuki Yamada
Ayano Tsujiuchi
Kasumi Fukui
Maimi
Inoue
Anzu Nishida
Mayumi Narita
Maori Yui
Moe Kinoshita
Miki
Serizawa
Sakura Koike
Chikako Ono
4 people on hold
In addition, if you meet the qualifications for participation in the classification that determines the degree of disability, there are four people who will be nominated as representatives.
Boys
Daiki Kubo,
Eisho Minami, Ryo
Nagano
Girls
Mito Utsuki
Tomotarou Nakamura
Tomotarou Nakamura is 36 years old from Kobe.
Of the nine classes of breaststroke motor dysfunction, this is the sixth most severe class.
I haven't had both arms since I was born, and I can move forward with just the power to kick the water with my feet.
I started swimming from an early age, saying, "Don't drown," and started to engage in full-scale competition from junior high school students.
He won the bronze medal in the 100-meter breaststroke, which he is good at at the Athens Games, which was his first participation in the Paralympics, and the silver medal at the London Games.
However, he finished 7th in the previous Rio de Janeiro Games, and has been training to thoroughly train his core to aim for the world podium again.
We aim to win medals at the Tokyo Paralympics, which will be the fifth consecutive tournament.
Kaede Hinata
Kaede Hinata is 15 years old from Yokohama.
This is the fifth most severe class of the 10 classes of motor dysfunction.
From the time I was born, my right arm is about 10 cm and I have no left arm.
Due to my brother's influence, I started swimming when I was in the first grade of elementary school.
Swimming that makes the most of flexibility and core strength has a particularly strong kicking power, and since last year I have been taught by a coach who participated in the world championship in swimming.
At the Japan Championships in March this year, he set his own Japanese record with a 50-meter butterfly.
Even at the Japan Para Tournament held until yesterday, it is expected to break the Japanese record and become a young growth stock.
This will be my first time to participate in the Paralympics.
Takuro Yamada
Takuro Yamada is 30 years old from Sanda City, Hyogo Prefecture.
Of the 10 classes with motor dysfunction, the 9th most severely disabled class has no elbows on the left arm since birth.
At the recommendation of my parents, "Don't drown in the unlikely event," I started attending swimming school at the age of three.
At the age of 13, he was the youngest player in history to participate in the Paralympics for the first time in the Athens Games, and has since participated in four consecutive Games.
Last time, he was also the captain of the Japanese swimming team, and won the bronze medal in the 50-meter freestyle at the Rio de Janeiro Games.
We will continue to improve the way we swim from the start to the rise, aiming to update our personal best and win medals at the 5th Tokyo tournament.
Motoki Saito
Motoki Saito is 22 years old from Oishida Town, Yamagata Prefecture.
This is the class with the least visual impairment.
When I was in the second grade of elementary school, I learned that I had a progressive disease called macular degeneration, and now both eyes lack the center of vision.
I started swimming in kindergarten and retired once when I was in the third year of high school, but after becoming a college student, I was recommended to swim in parasports and returned as a player.
After that, in order to enhance the practice environment, we transferred to Kokushikan University, where the parasports athletes belonged, and have been strengthening it.
He won three bronze medals at the 2018 Asian Para Games, and even at the Japan Para Games, which was held until the 23rd, he was showing a swim that broke the Japanese record with his strong 100-meter backstroke.
Miyuki Yamada
Miyuki Yamada is 14 years old from Agano City, Niigata Prefecture.
Of the 10 classes of motor dysfunction, this is the second most severe class.
Since I was born, I have no arms and I have a disability in both legs, so I usually live in an electric wheelchair.
He started swimming at the age of five and changed to a more disabled class in February last year, and in his specialty backstroke, he mainly kicks water on the outside of his left knee and the back of his right foot to generate propulsion.
At the Japan Championships in March, he set a new record in Japan, which is equivalent to the silver medal of the 2019 World Championships, and suddenly became a medal candidate for the Tokyo Paralympics.
Ayano Tsujiuchi
Ayano Tsujiuchi is 24 years old from Edogawa Ward, Tokyo.
This is the class with the least visual impairment.
Due to the influence of my father who was a coach, I started swimming in the third grade of elementary school and participated in national competitions when I was a high school student.
When I was in the first year of college, I was diagnosed with the progressive intractable disease "macular dystrophy" that causes vision loss and visual field abnormalities.
Since four years ago, he has been engaged in para-swimming in earnest and has set new Japanese records one after another with his straight underwater posture with little resistance.
Although he is good at freestyle swimming, he won the bronze medal in the 100-meter breaststroke at the 2019 World Championships and became the only Japanese female medalist in this tournament.
This is my first time to participate in the Paralympics.
Kasumi Fukui
Kasumi Fukui is 22 years old from Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture.
This is a class of intellectual disabilities.
From high school, I started swimming as a competition in earnest.
Its strength is its clean form that keeps its posture, and at the 2018 Asian Para Games, it won the gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke, which is its specialty.
This is my first time to participate in the Paralympics.
Maimi Inoue
Maimi Inoue is 22 years old from Moriyama City, Shiga Prefecture.
This is a class of intellectual disabilities.
I started learning swimming under the influence of my brother, and now I am working as an instructor at a swimming school in my hometown of Shiga prefecture.
For a while, I couldn't improve my time due to my sharpness, but at the Japan Championships in March, I broke my own Japanese record with the 100m butterfly and 200m individual medley, which I am good at, and showed signs of recovery. Was there.
This is my first time to participate in the Paralympics.
An Nishida
An Nishida is 24 years old from Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture.
Of the 10 classes of motor dysfunction, this is the 7th most severe class.
From the time I was born, my right and left arms were short, and I usually lived with artificial legs, and I started swimming when I was in elementary school.
His specialty is butterfly, and the 2018 revision of international rules forced him to change the form, and he was temporarily away from the Japanese national team.
When the pool could not be used due to the spread of the new coronavirus, I thoroughly trained my weak left arm with strength training and refined my swimming with both arms.
At the Japan Para Tournament, which was held until the 23rd, the 50-meter butterfly, which was the main event, broke the Japanese record.
At the first Paralympic Games in Tokyo, the main event, the 50-meter butterfly final, will be held on his 25th birthday.
Mayumi Narita
Mayumi Narita is 50 years old from Kawasaki City.
Of the 10 classes of motor dysfunction, this is the 5th most severe class.
At the age of 13, myelitis caused my lower body to become incapacitated, and when I started swimming at the age of 23, I participated in the Paralympics for four consecutive tournaments, from the first appearance in the Atlanta Games to the Beijing Games.
He has won 15 gold medals, which is the largest number of Japanese athletes in all Paralympic competitions, and was called the "Queen of Water".
Although he temporarily retired from the front line of the competition, he returned to the competition after the decision to hold the Tokyo Paralympics, which he was involved in from the invitation stage, and is making efforts to improve the barrier-free environment as a director of the Games Organizing Committee. ..
Although he was worried about the new coronavirus infection due to his weak lung function due to the disability, he continued to strengthen his lungs and decided to participate in the 6th Paralympic Games, which he considers to be the "last stage".
Maori Yui
Maori Yui is 18 years old from Maebashi City.
This is the fifth most severe class of the 10 classes of motor dysfunction.
From the time I was born, I couldn't move from my waist down due to the complication of a disease called "Larsen Syndrome", and I started swimming in the first grade of elementary school as part of my rehabilitation.
Invited by a coach who raised a Paralympic gold medalist, he started the competition in earnest from the fifth grade of elementary school, and is good at middle-distance events with the strength of catching water with his long arms.
In May 2019, the class was changed to a more severely disabled class.
This is my first time to participate in the Paralympics.
Kinoshita Moe
Moe Kinoshita is 22 years old from Kawasaki City.
This is a class of intellectual disabilities.
When I was young, I was so scared of water that it was difficult to wash my hair, so I started swimming when I was in elementary school to overcome my fear.
The main event is the 100-meter butterfly, which is good at developing races that swim tenaciously until the end, and set a new Japanese record at the Japan Para Tournament.
This will be my first time to participate in the Paralympics.
Mikika Serizawa
Mikika Serizawa is 20 years old from Yokohama.
This is a class of intellectual disabilities.
I started swimming after I entered elementary school, and I am good at breaststroke, which creates propulsion with a compact and lean kick using a soft ankle.
In the 100-meter breaststroke, which is the main event, he was the first Japanese female player in the intellectual disability class to advance to the final at the 2019 World Championship and finished in 7th place.
This is my first time to participate in the Paralympics.
Sakura Koike
Sakura Koike is 20 years old from Saitama City.
Of the 10 classes of motor dysfunction, this is the 7th most severe class.
I had paralysis on both legs due to an illness that I had 11 months old, and I started swimming when I couldn't keep up with myself in elementary school classes.
At the 2018 Asian Para Games, he won the bronze medal in the 400-meter freestyle of the main event.
Chikako Ono
Chikako Ono is 26 years old from Obihiro, Hokkaido.
Born with a low weight, he has no eyesight in both eyes and is the most visually impaired class.
I started swimming in earnest as an elementary school student and participated in the London Paralympics for the first time when I was in the third year of high school.
I was good at backstroke, and after that, I participated in the Rio de Janeiro Games and aimed to participate in the Paralympics for the third consecutive tournament.
I have been strengthening for about half a year due to my back injury, even though I couldn't swim for about half a year.