Japanese Olympic gymnast Shoko Miyata will miss the 2024 Paris Olympics due to smoking.
The 19-year-old captain of the country’s women’s artistic gymnastics team was sent back to Japan on Thursday, July 18, just 10 days before the global competition, according to the Japanese Gymnastics Association (JGA) on Friday, July 19.
JGA officials confirmed that Miyata’s transgressions involved both smoking and drinking alcohol. “We apologize from the bottom of our hearts for this,” said JGA’s president Tadashi Fujita.
Japan Gymnastics Association secretary general Kenji Nishimura told reporters in Tokyo, “With her confirmation and after discussions on all sides, it has been decided that she will withdraw from the Olympics.”
Miyata’s coach, Mutsumi Harada, explained that the gymnast — 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 on Friday.
The first indication that Miyata would miss the games came on Wednesday, July 17, when she failed to attend an open training session.
Miyata previously placed three times at the Asian Championships and three times at the World University Games, including earning a bronze medal on the balance beam at the 2022 World Championships.
More recently, in April, she won her first gold medal at Japan’s national championships, following back-to-back silver medals.
Japan has not medaled in the women’s gymnastics team all-around competition since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The 2024 Summer Olympics will be broadcast live from Paris from July 26 to August 11 on NBC.
