A Japanese Olympic gymnast has been sent home after she admitted to underage smoking and drinking.
According to The Japan Times, Shoko Miyata had to withdraw from the 2024 Summer Olympics after revealing she had smoked cigarettes in her private time and consumed alcohol at the National Training Center in Tokyo which violates the team’s code of conduct.
The 19-year-old captain of the county’s women’s artistic gymnastics team was sent back to Japan on Thursday, July 18, just 10 days before the global competition, the Japanese Gymnastics Association (JGA) said on Friday, July 19, per BBC News and The Guardian.
“We apologise from the bottom of our hearts for this,” JGA’s president Tadashi Fujita said in a hastily arranged news conference on Friday.
Coach Harada said that while Miyata’s conduct had been reckless, she had been under extreme pressure to perform at the highest level. “She was spending her days really burdened with so much pressure,” he said, wiping away tears. “I would implore people to understand that.”
Shoko had proven her talent in the sport, winning bronze in the balance beam event at the 2022 World Championships and gold at the All Japan Championship this April. Miyata is the reigning Japanese national champion.
Dai Tamesue, a 400-meter hurdler in three Olympic Games from 2000, posted on X before the news conference that, although Miyata’s actions were problematic, she shouldn’t be removed from the squad.
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A Japanese Olympic gymnast has been sent home after she admitted to underage smoking and drinking.
According to The Japan Times, Shoko Miyata had to withdraw from the 2024 Summer Olympics after revealing she had smoked cigarettes in her private time and consumed alcohol at the National Training Center in Tokyo which violates the team’s code of conduct.
The 19-year-old captain of the county’s women’s artistic gymnastics team was sent back to Japan on Thursday, July 18, just 10 days before the global competition, the Japanese Gymnastics Association (JGA) said on Friday, July 19, per BBC News and The Guardian.
“We apologise from the bottom of our hearts for this,” JGA’s president Tadashi Fujita said in a hastily arranged news conference on Friday.
Coach Harada said that while Miyata’s conduct had been reckless, she had been under extreme pressure to perform at the highest level. “She was spending her days really burdened with so much pressure,” he said, wiping away tears. “I would implore people to understand that.”
Shoko had proven her talent in the sport, winning bronze in the balance beam event at the 2022 World Championships and gold at the All Japan Championship this April. Miyata is the reigning Japanese national champion.
Dai Tamesue, a 400-meter hurdler in three Olympic Games from 2000, posted on X before the news conference that, although Miyata’s actions were problematic, she shouldn’t be removed from the squad.
