Takeru Kitazono

Kitazono Takeru
北園 丈琉
Kitazono at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics
Personal information
Full name	Takeru Kitazono
Country represented	Japan
Born	(2002-10-21) October 21, 2002 (age 22) Osaka, Japan
Residence	Osaka, Japan
Height	1.54 m (5 ft 1 in)
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Level	Elite
Years on national team	2017–present (JPN)
Club	Seifu High School
Gym	Tokushukai
Head coach(es)	Isao Yoneda Hisashi Mizutori
Former coach(es)	Hideki Umemoto
Medal record Men's artistic gymnastics Representing  Japan Olympic Games 2020 Tokyo Team Asian Games 2022 Hangzhou Team 2022 Hangzhou All-Around 2022 Hangzhou Parallel Bars Asian Championships 2023 Singapore Team 2023 Singapore All-Around Junior World Championships 2019 Győr Team 2019 Győr Pommel Horse 2019 Győr Parallel Bars Youth Olympic Games 2018 Buenos Aires All-Around 2018 Buenos Aires Floor Exercise 2018 Buenos Aires Rings 2018 Buenos Aires Parallel Bars 2018 Buenos Aires Horizontal Bar Representing Mixed-NOCs Youth Olympic Games 2018 Buenos Aires Mixed team

Kitazono Takeru (北園 丈琉, Kitazono Takeru, born 21 October 2002) is a Japanese male artistic gymnast.^[1] At the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he won five gold medals in the all-around, floor, rings, parallel bars, and horizontal bar competitions.^[2] He was the first artistic gymnast ever to achieve such a feat in a single Youth Olympic Games.^[3]

Kitazono was born on 21 October 2002 in Osaka, Japan.^[4] He started gymnastics when he was three years old after his mother enrolled him in a nearby gym^[5] because he was fascinated with a Japanese superhero television series Kamen Rider Hibiki.^[6]

Kitazono has received two awards. At the 2018 Japanese Olympic Committee Sports Awards, he received a Rookie Award.^[6] In 2019, he received Big Sports Rookie Award at the 53rd TV Asahi Big Sports Awards.^[6]

In 2017, Kitazono fractured his left ankle during training. The injury was still troubling him at the national trials for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina.^[6]

Kitazono was selected to represent Japan at the third Youth Olympic Games. While there he won an unprecedented five gold medals – in the all-around, floor exercise, rings, parallel bars, and horizontal bar – beating the previous record of three gold medals won by Nikita Nagornyy and Giarnni Regini-Moran at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. He finished sixth on pommel horse.^[3] In addition to his five gold medals, Kitazono also received a silver medal in the mixed multi-discipline team (teams were randomly composed of gymnasts from various countries and various disciplines). Kitazono was assigned to the team named after British gymnast Max Whitlock.

Kitazono later competed at the All-Japan Team Championships where he helped his club finish seventh.^[7]

In January, Kitazono competed at the RD761 Junior International Cup where he helped Japan win gold, and individually, he placed first on the all-around, pommel horse, rings and parallel bars, and he placed seventh on the horizontal bar as well as sixth on floor exercise.^[8]

Kitazono was selected to represent Japan at the inaugural Junior World Championships alongside Ryosuke Doi and Shinnosuke Oka. While there the team won gold in the team final finishing nearly 3 points ahead of second place Ukraine. Although Kitazono recorded the third-highest all-around score of the day, he was left off the podium due to both teammates scoring higher and the two-per-country rule taking place.^[9] During event finals he won gold on pommel horse and parallel bars and placed seventh on floor exercise.^[10]

In April, Kitazono damaged the ligaments in both elbows while competing on the horizontal bar at the All-Japan Championships, their national selection trials for the 2020 Olympic Games at home in Tokyo.^[6]

At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Kitazono, 18, competed as part of Team Japan's relatively young men's team on team event that also included Daiki Hashimoto, 19, Kazuma Kaya, 24, and Kakeru Tanigawa, 22, with none having any past Olympic experience.^[11] With a completely new roster, no former Olympic male gymnast of Japan returned to lead team event. Kitazono would later win the Olympic team silver in the men's team all-around competition. The team posted a total score of 262.397, which was only 0.103 behind the winning Russian Olympic Committee team.^[12] If Japan had managed to secure team gold at these home Games, Kitazono would have broken the record and become Japan's youngest male gymnast in history to win Olympic gold. He would have been 18 years, 9 months and 5 days old. The record is currently being held by Kenzō Shirai at 19 years, 11 months and 15 days old, who also became the first ever Japanese male teenage gymnast to win Olympic gold when Japan took team gold at the 2016 Games. Hashimoto, who was only 6 days older than Shirai, joined him as Japan's second (youngest) male teenage gymnast to win Olympic gold after winning the individual all-around title in 2021. Shirai broke long-standing record of Eizo Kenmotsu, who won team gold as a 20-year-8-month-and-11-day-old nearly 49 years ago at the 1968 Games.

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