Uchu Tomita

Started: He began swimming at age three, and was also a competitive dancer at university. He took up Para swimming in 2013. "As the symptoms progressed, it became difficult to continue with competitive dance, so I was looking for a Para sport. I tried various sports including a blind marathon. At the swimming club, I met people with various disabilities, including those with more severe disabilities than myself, and it made me think that my disability was not something special." (genetics.qlife.jp, 15 Apr 2021; Athlete, 11 Sep 2019; sports-kokoro.jp, 12 Jul 2017) Reason: His parents encouraged him to take up the sport in order to improve his health. He competed in swimming in middle school and high school but stopped after he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. He returned to the sport, initially as a hobby, but decided to focus on it in 2013 after Tokyo won the bid to host the 2020 Paralympic Games. "At that time I was also working, so I started training on land in parks in the morning, worked as a system engineer during the day, and went swimming at night. After being selected for the national team in 2015, I joined EY Japan as an athlete and decided to take a career in Para swimming seriously." (genetics.qlife.jp, 15 Apr 2021; 1242.com, 22 Jan 2018; sports-news.jp, 07 Sep 2018; sports-tokyo.info, 27 Mar 2017) Ambition: To compete at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. (sankei.com, 09 Nov 2021) Awards: In 2018 he received the Yokohama Sports Excellence Award in Japan. (Instagram profile, 28 Jan 2019) In 2018 he received the Kanagawa Prefecture Sports Excellence Citation Award in Japan. (pref.kanagawa.jp, 30 Nov 2018) Additional Info: FURTHER EDUCATION He has studied sports coaching at the Graduate School of Health and Sport Science at Nippon Sport Science University in Tokyo, Japan. (spot-lite.jp, 16 Dec 2022)