The Japan Championships (27th-30th), which also serves as the final selection for the Paris Olympic team, will be held at the Denka Big Swan Stadium in Niigata City. On the 26th, Hiba Uzawa (21, Tsukuba University 4th year), who will compete in the men’s 200m, spoke about his enthusiasm for his first Olympic appearance at a press conference the day before.
At the beginning of the press conference, Uzawa said, “The qualifying standard for the Paris Olympics has been something I’ve been aiming for this year and last year as well,” and expressed his aspirations, saying, “This will be my first Olympic challenge, so I want to make that my main focus.”
This will be Uzawa’s third time competing in the Japan Championships. “I hope I can play the game as I always do and have fun,” he said.
At the Golden Grand Prix (GGP) held in May, Uzawa won in 20.40 seconds, but was 0.24 seconds short of the standard for the Paris Olympics (20.16 seconds). After falling immediately after the race and being taken away by ambulance, Uzawa later wrote on his social media that he was “unable to move due to a concussion.”
At the press conference, he revealed, “I didn’t run for two weeks to see how it went, and I mostly just walked, and then I gradually increased the intensity from there.” He continued, “I’ve finally been able to run again recently, and it’s been about two weeks, so I was really wondering how it would go for the Japan Championships. In my case, I feel like my body gets back to normal if I can run a little, so I think I’ve just made it in time and I think I can compete.” It seems he has his sights set on the Japan Championships.
This tournament also serves as a selection tournament for the Paris Olympics, and he commented, “Of course it would be great to be able to compete (in the Olympics), but that will be the result of this tournament, and I’m only able to compete because this tournament went well.I’ve been training for this tournament first and foremost, so although I would like to compete in the Olympics, I want to set that aside for now and focus on achieving good results in this tournament.”
Source: Japanese