At the Olympic Games opening ceremony on July 23, Ms. Yui Susaki, fourth year student of the School of Sport Sciences, will be the standard bearer for the Japan Olympic Team, and alumni Ms. Kiyomi Watanabe (affiliated with Advics Co., Ltd., graduated from the School of Sport Sciences in 2019) will be the standard bearer for the Philippines Olympic Team.
Ms. Susaki joined the Elite Academy, established by the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) with the goal of nurturing athletes who will compete at the Olympics and other events, in the second year of middle school, and won successive world championships in 2017/2018. She won the Asia qualifiers in April this year, which had been delayed due to the impact of the novel coronavirus, and was chosen to take part in her first Olympic Games in the Women’s Freestyle 50KG event.
Yui Susaki
Ms. Watanabe was born on Cebu Island in the Philippines. Her father is Japanese, and her mother is Filipino. In 2018, she won a silver medal in the 18th Asian Games, in which she competed while still a student at Waseda University.
Kiyomi Watanabe
At the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, which begin on August 24, two people, a man and woman, were chosen to be the standard bearers for the Japan Olympic Team during the opening ceremony. Alumni Mr. Koyo Iwabuchi (affiliated with Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd., graduated from the School of Education in 2017) and Ms. Mami Tani (affiliated with Suntory Holdings Limited, graduated from the Graduate School of Sport Sciences in 2012) have been chosen as the standard bearers.
Mr. Iwabuchi has been selected to represent Japan at the Tokyo 2020 Para Table Tennis Championships in the Men’s Class 9 event. He has said that he “wants to challenge himself and set a target of ‘more than a gold medal’.” He is expected to win a medal.
Koyo Iwabuchi
Ms. Tani participated in the Paralympic Long Jump in three consecutive Paralympic Games since 2004. In 2013, she served as presenter for the Tokyo 2020 Bid
Committee. And in 2016, she switched to the Paratriathlon. For this year’s Tokyo Paralympics, she has been selected for the motor impairment class (Women’s PTS5).
Mami Tani
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