Yuki Ota

Yuki Ota (太田 雄貴, Ōta Yūki, born 25 November 1985 in Otsu, Shiga) is a Japanese foil fencer, gold medallist at the 2006 Asian Games, silver medallist at the 2008 Summer Olympics, team silver medallist at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and individual gold medallist at the 2015 World Fencing Championships.

Yuki Ota
Ota at the 2014 Paris World Cup
Personal information
Full nameYuki Ota
Born (1985-11-25) 25 November 1985[1]
Otsu, Shiga, Japan
Height1.71 m (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in)[1]
Weight68 kg (150 lb; 10.7 st)[2]
Sport
SportFencing
WeaponFoil
Handright-handed
National coachOleg Matseichuk
FIE rankingcurrent ranking

Career

Yuki took up fencing in his elementary school years at the instigation of his father, a Zorro fan and keen amateur fencer.[3] He won the national junior high school championships. In Heian High School, he got third consecutive championship victories in national high school championships.

Ota climbed his first World Cup podium with a victory at the 2004 Tehran World Cup. He qualified for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, his first Olympic participation, but was defeated in the table of 16 by Russia's Renal Ganeyev. He later explained he had felt completely overpowered: "It was on a whole other level. In F1 terms, it was like the finalists were equipped with completely different engines."[3] Demotivated, he was taken over in world rankings by friend and rival Kenta Chida, whom he always used to beat, and contemplated giving up competition to take a regular job.[3]

In 2006, Ota resumed training with Japan's national coach, Ukrainian Oleg Matseichuk, from whom he had always kept his distances before.[3] He won a gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and at the 2008 Asian Fencing Championships held in Bangkok.

In the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Ota reached the final of the men's individual foil held on 13 August 2008, by beating Germany's Peter Joppich 15–12 in the quarter finals and Salvatore Sanzo 15–14 in the semifinals. He lost 15–9 to Benjamin Kleibrink in the final, thus winning the silver medal, Japan's first Olympic medal.[3] He was then recruited by French club ASPTT Aix-en-Provence and took part in the team event of the 2009 French national championship along with Erwann Le Péchoux and Marcel Marcilloux.[4] In the 2008–09 season, Ota moved to the top of the world rankings after finishing runner-up in the Moscow World Cup.[5]

At the 2012 Summer Olympics, he lost in the third round of the individual foil competition, but won a silver medal in the team foil event.[6] At the 2015 World Fencing Championships, he won gold in the Men's foil event, becoming the first Japanese to win a world championship in any event in fencing.[7]

Ota graduated from Doshisha University. He is a member of the athletes commission of the International Fencing Federation.

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References
  1. "Yuki Ota Profile". Yahoo! Sports. 20 April 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
  2. "Japanese Medalists in London 2012 Olympics". joc.or.jp. Japanese Olympic Committee. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  3. Kosuke Inagaki (10 January 2014). "Yuki Ota: Olympic silver medalist plans to strike gold at Rio 2016". The Asahi Shimbun.
  4. "Escrime : Ota Yuki, nouvelle arme de l'ASPTT". La Provence (in French). 28 October 2008.
  5. "Fencer Ota climbs to No. 1 in world rankings". Japan Times. 28 May 2009. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
  6. "Olympics fencing: Italy beat Japan to win men's team foil". BBC Sport. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  7. 太田雄貴が日本フェンシング金字塔の世界一. Nikkan Sports (in Japanese). Retrieved 18 January 2016.
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