Miya Tachibana

Miya Tachibana is a Japanese artistic swimmer, formerly described as a synchronised swimmer, who was born on 12 December 1974 in Otsu, Shiga, and began the sport in her fourth year of elementary school. She won five Olympic medals: bronze in the team event at the 1996 Atlanta Games, then silver in the duet with Miho Takeda and silver in the team event at Sydney in 2000, and silver again in both at Athens in 2004, after which she retired. Her duet gold with Takeda at the 2001 Fukuoka World Championships was the first world title for a Japanese synchronised swimming team, and she won the duet at the 2002 Asian Games. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2011 and became a coach.