On July 21, 2021, the JAPAN Para-Ski Federation announced its first round of candidates for the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics, and Momoka Muraoka (affiliated with Toyota Motor Corporation), a doctoral student at Waseda University’s Graduate School of Sport Sciences, was selected.
The announcement took into consideration the results of international competitions such as the World Cup and the Asian Cup for the 2020/2021 season, and this will be Muraoka’s third consecutive winter Paralympics after she participated in the Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympics and the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Paralympics. She also participated in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, which had a one-year postponement and was held in the summer of 2021, and so will be consecutively competing in the summer and winter Paralympics with an unusually short period of time between them.
Momoka Muraoka participating in women’s slalom (2018, Kyodo News)
Profile:
Momoka Muraoka
Born in Saiatama Prefecture in 1997. She is currently enrolled in the doctoral program at Waseda University’s Graduate School of Sport Sciences. She became wheelchair-bound at the age of four due to a spinal cord illness. She placed fifth at the Sochi 2014 Winter Paralympics, and at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Paralympics, she won five medals, including a gold medal. She also participated in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics in short-distance athletics.
