Nikkei athletes at 2008 Olympics
I was looking through various online resources to figure out what Nikkei athletes are competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Here's what I've come up with: United States - Haley Ishimatsu - finished 5th in women's 10m platform synchro diving. Is competing in the women's individual 10m platform diving on Aug 20 & 21 - Clarissa Chun - placed 5th in women's freestyle 48kg wrestling - Taylor Takata finished 9th with a 2-2 record in the men's 66kg class in judo - Sayaka Matsumoto lost both of her judo matches. I'm not sure what place that puts her in - Bryan Clay - decathlon - competes Aug 21 & 22 (www.bryanclay.com) I haven't actually confirmed that all of these are Nikkei, but here's a list of Japanese-sounding names from other Olympic teams. Their photos look like they could be... Brazil Luisa Matsuo - rhythmic gymnastics - Group All-Around. Competition begins Aug 21. Gustavo Tsuboi - table tennis - Men's Team & Men's Singles. In Men's Team, Brazil finished tied for 9th. In singles, Gustavo won his preliminary match, but lost his first round match. Hugo Hoyama - table tennis - Men's Team Mariany Nonaka - table tennis - Women's Singles. Lost in the preliminary round. Stenio Yamamoto - shooting - Men's 50m Pistol (finished 44th) & Men's 10m Air Pistol (finished 43rd) Mariana Ohata - women's triathlon - finished 39th Poliana Okimoto - Swimming - women's marathon 10km - competition is on Aug 20 Tatiane Sakemi - swimming in the Women's 100m Breaststroke, Women's 200m Breaststroke, and the Women's 4x100m Medley Relay. Her results are online. Australia Eugenia Tanaka - Women's doubles badminton. She and her partner Tania Luiz lost to a team from Japan in the round of 16 on Aug 10. Does anyone know of any I might have missed? I didn't go through the entire Olympic athletes roster, so I could have easily missed others. Plus, if they are Hapa/mixed race, then their names might not seem Japanese, or if they're married to a non-Japanese, etc. There's one case where someone had a Japanese last name, but it's because she's married to a Japanese national (Great Britain marathoner Mara Yamauchi). |

Poliana Okimoto of Brazil finished 7th in the Women's Marathon 10km swimming event at the 2008 Olympics. She finished in 1:59:37.4 -- just 9.7 seconds behind the winner from Russia.