Shizuka Hangai wears her silver medal in the women’s 48 kilogram class in the J1 class on Thursday at the Paralympic Games in Paris.
12:24 JST, September 7, 2024
PARIS — Judoka Shizuka Hangai has finally reached the podium at the Paralympic Games in Paris after winning silver in the women’s 48-kilogram category in the totally blind (J1) class.
She was able to overcome her deteriorating vision by working with her coach. The 36-year-old was born with amblyopia, better known as lazy eye, and has retinitis pigmentosa, an incurable congenital eye disease that gets worse over time. She can now only sense light.
Hangai did not win any medals at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games.
After finishing fifth at the Tokyo Paralympic Games, she thought, “If I’m blind, I’m powerless.”
Hangai’s coach, Yuko Isozaki, advised her, “If you can’t see, you have to be able to guess your opponents’ moves with your senses.”
She thought it was impossible, but still believed in Isozaki’s words: “You can do it if you just keep practicing.”
Through much practice, the athlete developed her senses: she noticed the shift in her opponent’s weight and could thus predict their next move.
In Paris, Hangai patiently waited for the right moment until her opponents’ posture was perfect to execute her techniques. She won the first round and semi-finals with a waza-ari in overtime, but lost in the final to a Ukrainian competitor who surprised her.
With her first medal in hand, Hangai said with a smile, “I was able to do what I set out to do.”
