Tadahiro Nomura - Japanese Olympian

Tadahiro Nomura is one of the most famous judo competitors in Japan. He is the only judo competitor in the world, and the first Asian olympian, who has won gold medals at three Olympics in a row.

Tadahiro was born on December 10, 1974 in Nara. His grandfather was a local judo instructor and his father was the coach of Shinji Hosokawa, who won a gold medal at the 1984 L.A. Olympics. His uncle, Toyokazu Nomura, was also a gold medalist at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

He began learning judo at his grandfather's dojo at the age of six. He was successful in several local and national level competitions during high school.

He entered Tenri University in 1993, where he won the All-Japan Selected judo championships for his weight class in April,1996 and three months later he won his first Olympic gold medal in Atlanta.

Then he won his second Olympic gold medal at Sydney in 2000. He became the first -60kg division competitor to win consecutive Olympic gold medals. He won his third consecutive Olympic gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Unfortunately, the news that he had won another Olympic gold medal was overshadowed by Ryoko Tamura's Olympic success in the newspapers, with her Olympic victory, coming on the same day.

My Olympic hero - Kosuke Kitajima

LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 04: Silver medallists Ryosuke Irie, Kosuke Kitajima, Takeshi Matsuda and Takuro Fujii of Japan pose on the podium during the medal ceremony for the Men's 4x100m Meldey Relay Final on Day 8 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre on August 4, 2012 in London, England. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Kosuke Kitajima participated in Olympic Games consecutively
f our times. His longtime efforts really inspired me.

I paid attention to Kitajima, who was a consecutive gold medalist in men’s breaststroke at the Athens and Beijing Olympics. Unfortunately, he didn’t get any medals in the individual events in the London Olympics. However, he has been in the spotlight, because of his diligent efforts to improve his swimming skills. The other day, a TV programme showed how he studied about his form and put it into practice strictly. His swimming form with large strokes was checked and incorporated by a lot of swimmers in other countries. I’ve also heard that his great enthusiasm for swimming inspired the Japanese young swimmers, especially the swimmers of 400-meter medley relay team, who respected Kitajima, and wanted to get a good result for him. They all did their best and won the silver medal.

I wonder if he makes a fifth challenge. Maybe, not.
Besides competition activity, he established a swimming school.

By the way, don’t you think Japan got the good results in team competitions, not just swimming? I think that they were very tenacious, probably because they received the influence of the earthquake disaster.

Posted by Chinami