78th NATIONAL SPORTS FESTIVAL (JPN)

• Saturday, September 14th – Monday, September 16th
• Sunrise Park, Saga Prefecture, Japan
• Meet Central
• LCM (50m)
• Results

Olympic champion Yui Ohashi dove in for the final race of her career today at the 78th National Sports Festival.

28-year-old Ohashi competed in the women’s 200m IM at the Sunrise Park pool in the Sage Prefecture, putting up a time of 2:12.03 to snag silver behind winner and fellow Paris Olympic teammate Shiho Matsumoto. Matsumoto touched in 2:10.51 for the victory.

As for Ohashi, the two-time gold medalist from the 2020 Tokyo Games revealed she is hanging up her goggles and looking ahead to graduate school.

“I enjoyed it from the bottom of my heart, and it was a good race for my last race,” Itoman Toshin’s Ohashi said today.

“It’s been a dream-like competitive swimming career,”

She also said, “I’d like to be involved in the rebuilding of Japan’s competitive swimming world. I’d like to play a part in strengthening the team to produce Olympic athletes and medalists so that I can give back to Itoman, who have been so kind to me.” (SportsBull)

Ohashi entered the upper echelon of the women’s IM events in 2017 when she earned silver at that year’s World Championships in the 200m IM. In 2018, she topped the podium in both IMs at the Pan Pacific Championships and followed up with 400m IM gold and 200m IM silver at the Asian Games.

The pinnacle of Ohashi’s career came at the 2020 Games where she became the gold medalist in both the 200m IM and 400m IM, representing 2 of Japan’s only 3 medals at that postponed affair. Her accomplishment rendered her the sole Japanese female athlete to ever win multiple gold medals at an Olympics.

Since then, however, Ohashi’s performances were trailing the rest of the world and she qualified for this year’s Olympics in just the 200m IM. In Paris, Ohashi finished in 12th place in the 200m IM, missing the final and a chance to defend her gold.