YUMI ADACHI FREE

I was able to forget all the pain and tension and concentrate on acting. But it is very difficult to swim if you are crying, so I told myself: “I have to stop crying, I have to stop crying.” Maybe thanks to that, for the first time, I entered my own world, which means ‘my zone’. I was so scared that I didn’t want to swim.

That was the first-ever national championship for me…I was extremely nervous and wept before performing.

YUMI ADACHI FREE

Depending on the result of the free routine, it would be decided whether I could beat or lose to Konishi. I was fighting with Konishi-san for the second place. The first place went to Saho Harada, who was a medallist at the 20 Olympics. At that time the total score of the technical and free routine determined the rankings. It was the solo event at the 2008 Japan Nationals. Now, I can watch the performances of various swimmers on the web, but when I was a junior high school student, there was no such thing, so I watched videotapes many times. I really admired her, so I watchedKonishi’s routines. It was amazing to me then that she was a high school student and could perform so wonderfully. At the time she was a top athlete who performed solo in the junior national team. But when I was about 13 or 14 years old I admired a (synchro) swimmer named Takako Konishi. It was really fun and a very happy time.ĭid you watch and study artistic swimming on TV? It was great fun! At first, I was happy to be able to try a lot of different techniques, to be able to do it, and to try new skills again and again. So I quit swimming and switched to a class to do synchro. But synchro expresses various things while dancing, jumping out and turning in the water.

The competition of swimming is just swimming in the pool. I was amazed that in artistic swimming you could do so many things in time with the music in the water. I really enjoyed that day, so I switched from swimming to artistic swimming. They let me participate in the experience session. Hence, my parents thought that their daughter had an aptitude for this sport. Even though I wasn’t doing anything special, my body was supple and I could do side splits from my childhood. I shared this information at home and I told my parents that I wanted to take part in the synchro lessons. When I was seven I learned that there was a day when I could attend artistic swimming practice in the club. My mother seemed to want her daughters to be able to swim because she couldn’t swim herself. A skilful and expressive performer, she talked to our magazine about her life in artistic swimming.Īt the age of three I began swimming at the swimming club in my hometown of Saitama. She retired in 2013 but returned when mixed duets were introduced for the Worlds and is now coaching. She competed in the team event at the 2012 London Olympics and in the 2009, 20 World Championships. The pair, who claimed a fifth and a seventh place when mixed duets were introduced at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan (RUS), moved up to fourth in both the free and technical programmes in 2017 and capped that with a brace of bronze medals each at the 2019 edition in Gwangju (KOR).Īdachi, now 31, has vast experience in the sport. Yumi Adachi and her partner Atsushi Abe made history for Japan last year when they captured the nation’s first-ever mixed-duet medals in a FINA World Championships.

Yumi adachi