A Fresh "Flying Fish of Fujiyama" to Pledge Gold Medal in Tokyo Olympics

Barely three years after the war, a certain "Flying Fish" in Japan snatched world records in swimming then and puzzled the world if Japan had really lost the war. Welcome to another episode on what's happening in/on/to Japan. I'm your navigator, Nathan Shiga. I'm delighted to share with you today delicious news about a 15-year-old Junior High girl, a latter-day Flying Fish about to snatch world records of her time - the Tokyo Olympics 2020.

Hironoshin Furuhashi - the original Flying Fish of Fujiyama, so referred to by the US media after his overwhelming performance at the US National Championships of Aquatics in 1949, broke world records in all freestyle distance categories marked only a year before at the Summer Olympics in 1948.

Now, this latter-day Flying Fish of Fujiyama is only 15, a sparkling young girl Rikako Ike-e by name, just out of junior high school. Rikako broke the senior Japanese record in the 100-meter butterfly clocking 57.56 at the 2015 World Cup.

Rikako turns 20 in 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics, and looks for gold medals in her favorites - freestyle and butterfly. In fact, Rikako is anxious to challenge Rio this summer and swims in the forthcoming Japan Championships next month in all of her favorite events - 50,100 and 200 meters in freestyle and 100 meter in butterfly. Rikako comments:

"For the time being, I'm gonna try hard to quality for Rio. The last thing I wanna do is to win gold medals in Tokyo, so I'll do my best."

Rikako Ike-e graduated from her Koiwa No.4 Junior High School today. After the ceremony she told the media:

"Oh, I loved the school lunch time the best. I gained 15 centimeters in 3 years - so did my swim records! "

We have Sara Takanashi in ski-jumping; now we have Rikako Ike-e in swimming. It's great to have young gold-medal winners - both flying in their own events.

Good show, Raika.