Olympic|
This year at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, for the first time Karate was included with the other four sports. At the event held at Nippon Budokan, the spiritual home of Japanese martial arts, Ryo Kiyuna brought Japan its first gold medal in Kata.
While receiving his hard-earned medal, he brought a photo of his Late mother to pay tribute to his mother for supporting him through the journey. He said, “He wanted to climb the highest part of the podium with her,” according to BBC News.Kiyuna is a three-time world champion and has won nine straight national championships. He had the dreams to be the first Okinawa-born Olympic Champion and cement his name in history.
“After the win, I wanted to tell my late mother that I kept a promise of getting the win at the Olympics.”
Kiyuna says, “I had so many difficulties and I couldn’t have overcome them by myself and I appreciate everything. My mother dreamed of seeing the gold medal I won” His dreams finally came true this year but his mother wasn’t there to celebrate the victory with him physically but he assures that she must be smiling and crying in heaven witnessing this scene.
This could have been his first and last chance of winning gold in the event as the event has been dropped from the program at the next summer Olympics that’ll be held in Paris in 2024. Japan also grabbed silver on women’s Kata with an outstanding performance by Kiyou Shimizu.
