Japanese Gymnast Shoko Miyata Sent Home from Paris Olympics for Violating Team Smoking Ban
“She was spending her days really burdened with so much pressure,” Mayata’s coach said Friday
Japanese Olympic gymnast Shoko Miyata is set to miss the 2024 Paris Olympics for smoking.
The 19-year-old captain of the county’s women’s artistic gymnastics team was sent back to Japan on Thursday, July 18, just 10 days before the global competition, the Japanese Gymnastics Association (JGA) said on Friday, July 19, per the Kyodo News, BBC News and The Guardian.
JGA officials also confirmed Friday that Miyata’s transgressions included both smoking and drinking alcohol, reported The Guardian.
“We apologise from the bottom of our hearts for this,” JGA’s president Tadashi Fujita said about the incident, according to BBC News and The Guardian.
“With her confirmation and after discussions on all sides, it has been decided that she will withdraw from the Olympics,” Japan Gymnastics Association secretary general Kenji Nishimura also told reporters in Tokyo, per the BBC.
Miyata’s coach Mutsumi Harada added that the gymnast — who is Japan’s reigning national champion — had been struggling with the intense “pressure” of representing her country at the Paris Games during the team’s training camp in Monaco.
“She was spending her days really burdened with so much pressure. I would implore people to understand that,” Harada said Friday.
