Japanese gymnastics star Shoko Miyata sent home from Olympics for smoking

Shoko Miyata, the 19-year-old captain of the Japan women’s artistic gymnastics team, has withdrawn from the squad for the Paris Games after violating the team’s code of conduct by smoking, the Japanese Gymnastics Association (JGA) said on Friday.

JGA officials said Miyata arrived in Japan on Thursday after leaving the team’s training camp in Monaco for investigation, which confirmed the violation including drinking alcohol. The women’s squad would compete with four athletes instead of five, the JGA told a media conference.

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“We apologise from the bottom of our hearts for this,” JGA’s president Tadashi Fujita said, bowing deeply along with other officials including Miyata‘s personal coach, Mutsumi Harada.

Hopes had been high for the Japan women’s gymnastics team, which was seeking to win a team medal at the Paris Games for the first time since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Miyata had been expected to lead a team comprised entirely of first-time Olympians and teenagers after she secured her Paris berth in May with a third consecutive NHK trophy.

Coach Harada said that while Miyata‘s conduct had been reckless, she had been under extreme pressure to perform at the highest level. “She was spending her days really burdened with so much pressure,” he said, wiping away tears. “I would implore people to understand that.”

Mental health issues facing young athletes took centre stage at the previous Olympic Games in Tokyo when gymnastics superstar Simone Biles pulled out of one competition after another.

Miyata is the reigning Japanese national champion. Although Japan are not considered a challenger for a team medal in Paris, Miyata won bronze on the beam at the 2022 world championships and came fifth in the all-around competition.

Japan’s men’s team won gymnastics gold at the 2016 Olympics, while the women last won a team medal in 1964. Mai Murakami claimed bronze in the floor exercise at the 2020 Games, becoming the first Japanese woman to win an individual artistic gymnastics medal at the Olympics.