Japan’s star gymnast and women’s team captain Shoko Miyata will miss the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris for smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.
It is a dramatic turn of events with the Olympics getting underway in just seven days (Friday, July 26) and a major blow to the Japan Gymnastics Association (JGA).
The JGA launched an internal investigation after receiving information on Monday that Miyata, 19, had been drinking booze at the National Training Center in Tokyo.
Miyata spoke to JGA officials on Thursday and admitted that she had indeed been drinking alcohol there in late June and July and she was also smoking cigarettes.
The teenager drank and smoked ‘out of pressure’ to perform well and has been left distraught over missing the Paris Games, said JGA executive Kenji Nishimura.
JGA chairman Tadashi Fujita added: ‘I offer my sincere apologies for causing a great amount of trouble to many people over Miyata. I’m very sorry.’
Miyata has now been sent home to Japan from Monaco, where the Japanese team had been training ahead of the 2024 Olympics.
The JGA’s code of conduct bans national team members from smoking and drinking during team activities.
That’s even if they are aged 20 or over – which is the age smoking and drinking is allowed in Japan.
Miyata’s absence is a significant blow for the JGA after she clinched a third successive NHK Trophy earlier this year, highlighting her importance as leader of the Japanese women’s team.
At the 2022 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool, Miyata won a bronze medal in the balance beam event.
Japan are dominant in men’s gymnastics – but the women’s teams haven’t enjoyed the same levels of success thus far – although Mai Murakami did win an individual Olympic medal at Tokyo 2020.
The women’s team haven’t landed an Olympic medal since registering bronze at the 1964 Games in Tokyo.
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