A 14-Year-Old Junior High to Swim for Japan in Rio

The Rio Olympiad three months away, Japan has another charm to boast to the world with a 14-year-old junior high school backstroker to swim for the country. Natsumi Sakai of Tsuchiai Junior High School, Saitama, swims in the 400-meter medley relay. She is 1.74 meters tall - comfortably tall for her age.

Now, Sakai is the first mid-teenager in twenty years to swim in the Olympics and her school's gymnasium was loaded with her schoolmates, over 1,000 of them, in a cheerful sendoff party.

Clad in the official red uniform, Natsumi responded to her classmates pep-up calls:

"I'm the youngest in the Team Japan, but can't be excused with poor performance. Just because I'm the youngest, I must swim well to boost the morale of my team."

She was presented with a good-luck “Senba Zuru” or thousand paper cranes and a chorus of the school song.

An intimate friend of hers since kindergarten said:

"Natsumi often skipped playing with us to concentrate in swimming. I'm so happy for her, her efforts having turned out this way to send her to Rio! I sure hope she'll do her best - I really do."

Natsumi Sakai was good at diving in her kindergarten days. She placed second in the Junior Olympic Summer championships at 6th grade and reigned in the 100-meter backstroke in the Junior Olympic Spring Championships in her first year in Tsuchiai Junior High School. She won both 100-meter and 200-meter back strokes in the Japan Open.

Ayari Aoyama, then 14, swam in the Atlanta Olympics twenty years ago, and Natsumi Sakai is the first junior high swimmer to compete in the Olympics.

The feat of Natsumi Sakai rings a personal bell to me as she and I are Saitamans. It thrills me to picture a youngish local folk swimming for the pride and honor of Japan. This is Nathan Shiga. Good Day.