 Murakami at the2018 World Championships | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | (1996-08-05)5 August 1996 (age 29) Sagamihara,Kanagawa, Japan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.48 m (4 ft 10 in)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gymnastics career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Women's artistic gymnastics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country represented |  Japan(2010–2021) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| College team | Nippon Sport Science University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Yukio Iketani Gymnastics Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head coach | Kazukuni Ohno | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | 24 October 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Mai Murakami (村上茉愛,Murakami Mai; born 5 August 1996) is a Japanese retiredartistic gymnast andOlympic medalist. She won a gold medal on thefloor exercise at the2017 World Championships, becoming the first Japanese female gymnast to win a world title in 63 years. She also won the floor exercise title at the2021 World Championships and won the all-around silver medal at the2018 World Championships. She represented Japan at the2016 and2020 Olympics, winning a bronze medal on thefloor exercise in the latter. This made her the first Japanese female gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal.
Murakami joinedYukio Iketani's gymnastics club during elementary school. In 2010, she won the all-around, balance beam, and floor exercise titles at the National Junior High School Championships. She also won the floor exercise title at the senior-levelAll-Japan Championships and was added to thenational team for the first time.[2][3] She missed most of the 2011 season due to a knee injury.[4]
Murakami competed at the 2012 All-Japan Championships, where she placed 11th in the all-around but won the floor exercise title.[4][5] She was not named to the2012 Olympic team.[6] Murakami competed at the 2012 Stuttgart World Cup where Japan finished second to Russia.[7]
Murakami competed at the2013 City of Jesolo Trophy, where she won bronze with the Japanese team and placed 22nd in the all-around.[8] She finished third in the all-around at the All-Japan Championships, behindNatsumi Sasada andYu Minobe.[9] She then finished fourth on the floor exercise at the2013 World Championships.[4]
Murakami competed at the2014 Pacific Rim Championships, placing fourth with the team, sixth on the floor exercise, seventh on theuneven bars and balance beam, and ninth in the all-around.[10][11] She then placed sixth in the all-around at the All-Japan Championships and fourth at the NHK Cup.[12][13] She secured a berth for the2014 World Championships team by winning the floor exercise title at the All-Japan Event Championships.[2] At the World Championships, she helped Japan advance into the team final and finish eighth.[14] After the World Championships, she finished the season by placing fifth in the all-around at theGlasgow World Cup and then winning the vault and floor exercise events at the Toyota International.[15][16]
At the 2015 All-Japan Championships, Murakami placed tenth in the all-around,[17] and she placed eighth in the all-around at the NHK Cup.[18] Due to these results, she was initially named as the second alternate for the2015 World Championships team,[2] but an injury to teammateYuki Uchiyama led to her joining the team.[19][20] The Japanese team placed fifth in the team final,[21] and she placed sixth in the all-around, the best finish by a Japanese woman in six years.[19][22]
Murakami began the 2016 Olympic season at theAmerican Cup, where she placed sixth in the all-around.[23] She then won her first all-around title at the All-Japan Championships.[24] Then at the NHK Cup, she finished second in the all-around behindAsuka Teramoto.[25] She was then named to representJapan at the 2016 Summer Olympics along with Teramoto,Aiko Sugihara,Yuki Uchiyama, andSae Miyakawa.[26] The team finished fourth in theteam final.[27] Individually, Murakami placed 14th in theall-around final and seventh in thefloor exercise final.[28][29]
Murakami won her second consecutive All-Japan all-around title in 2017.[30] She also won the all-around at the NHK Cup and was then automatically named to theWorld Championship team along withAiko Sugihara.[31] She then won silver on the floor exercise and placed fifth on vault at the All-Japan Event Championships.[32] At the World Championships inMontreal, Quebec, Canada, she qualified first into the all-around final.[33] However, she fell off the balance beam in the final and placed fourth, one-tenth of a point behind the bronze medalist, Russia'sElena Eremina.[34] She bounced back in the floor exercise finals, where she placed first ahead ofJade Carey andClaudia Fragapane.[35] She is Japan's first World gold medalist on this event, and Japan's second World gold medalist on any women's gymnastics event, afterKeiko Tanaka-Ikeda won the gold on the balance beam in 1954.[19][36][37] Afterward, she won gold on floor and bronze on vault at the Toyota International.[38]
Murakami finished second in the all-around at the2018 American Cup, behindMorgan Hurd.[39][40] She then won the all-around at the Tokyo World Cup.[41] She also won the all-around at both the All-Japan Championships and the NHK Cup.[42][43] At the All-Japan Event Championships, she won gold on the balance beam and floor exercise.[44] At the2018 World Championships inDoha, Qatar, the Japanese team finished in sixth place.[45] Individually, she won the silver medal in the all-around final, behindSimone Biles.[46] It was the first women’s all-around silver medal in Japan’s history.[47] She then won the bronze medal in the floor exercise final, behind Biles and Hurd.[48][49]
Murakami won a bronze medal in the all-around at the 2019 American Cup behind AmericansLeanne Wong andGrace McCallum.[50] Murakami missed the NHK Cup due to a back injury, and because of this, Murakami was deemed ineligible to make the Japanese team for the2019 World Championships.[19][51] Her petition to be added to the team was denied by the Japan Gymnastics Association.[52]
In February 2020, it was announced that Murakami would represent Japan at theTokyo World Cup in April.[53] However, the event was cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic in Japan.[54] She returned to competition in September at the All-Japan Senior Championships, where she won gold in the all-around. In addition, she won the vault and floor exercise gold medals.[55]
After winning the all-around titles at the2021 All-Japan Championships and the NHK Trophy, Murakami was selected to representJapan at the 2020 Summer Olympics and was named team captain.[51] The team finished fifth in theteam final,[56] and Murakami also placed fifth in theall-around final.[57] In thefloor exercise final, she tied withAngelina Melnikova for the bronze medal.[58] She became the first female Japanese gymnast to win an individual medal at the Olympics.[59] This was also only the second time that Japan had won an Olympic medal on any women's gymnastics event, since winning bronze in the team competition at the1964 Olympics, which were also held in Tokyo.[59]
Murakami announced in advance of the2021 World Championships inKitakyushu, Japan, that it would be the final competition of her career.[60][61] There, she won the gold medal on the floor exercise and the bronze medal on the balance beam.[62]
After retiring as an athlete, she began coaching gymnastics atNippon Sport Science University. She was named the head coach of theJapan women's national artistic gymnastics team in 2024.[63]
Murakami was born inSagamihara, Japan, and began gymnastics when she was two years old.[1] Both of her parents were former gymnasts, and her three siblings all trained in gymnastics as well.[2] As a child, she participated in achildren's theatre troupe and also acted in TV dramas.[2][59]
Murakami attended university at theNippon Sport Science University in Tokyo.[1][3] In 2023, she married a men's gymnastics coach, Atsushi Morita, after dating for over six years.[64]
| Year | Event | Team | AA | VT | UB | BB | FX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | All-Japan Championships | 11 | |||||
| Stuttgart World Cup |  | ||||||
| 2013 | City of Jesolo Trophy |  | 22 | ||||
| All-Japan Championships | |  | | ||||
| NHK Cup | | ||||||
| World Championships | — | 4 | |||||
| 2014 | Pacific Rim Championships | 4 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 6 | |
| All-Japan Championships | 6 | ||||||
| NHK Trophy | 4 | ||||||
| All-Japan Event Championships | | | |||||
| World Championships | 8 | ||||||
| Glasgow World Cup | 5 | ||||||
| Toyota International | | | |||||
| 2015 | All-Japan Championships | 10 | |||||
| NHK Trophy | 8 | ||||||
| All-Japan Event Championships | | | |||||
| All-Japan Student Championships | | | 6 | | | ||
| World Championships | 5 | 6 | |||||
| Toyota International | | 4 | |||||
| 2016 | American Cup | 6 | |||||
| All-Japan Championships | | | 5 | | | ||
| NHK Trophy | | | 5 | 19 | | ||
| All-Japan Event Championships | 4 | | |||||
| Olympic Games | 4 | 14 | 7 | ||||
| All-Japan Team Championships | | ||||||
| Toyota International | | | | ||||
| 2017 | All-Japan Championships | | | 4 | | | |
| NHK Trophy | | | | | | ||
| All-Japan Event Championships | 5 | | |||||
| All-Japan Student Championships | | | 12 | | |||
| World Championships | — | 4 | 4 | | |||
| All-Japan Team Championships | | ||||||
| Toyota International | | | |||||
| 2018 | American Cup | | |||||
| Tokyo World Cup | | ||||||
| All-Japan Championships | | | 4 | | | ||
| NHK Trophy | | | 4 | | | ||
| All-Japan Event Championships | | | |||||
| World Championships | 6 | | R3 | | |||
| 2019 | American Cup | | |||||
| All-Japan Championships | | | | | | ||
| All-Japan Event Championships | | ||||||
| 2020 | All-Japan Senior Championships | | | | | | |
| All-Japan Championships | | | | | | ||
| 2021 | All-Japan Championships | | |||||
| NHK Trophy | | ||||||
| All-Japan Event Championships | | | |||||
| Olympic Games | 5 | 5 | R2 | | |||
| World Championships | — | | |
