Hikaru Mori

Japan’s Hikaru Mori made history in 2019 when she became the country’s first ever world individual champion in trampoline gymnastics. Mori scored 55.860 after a breath-taking performance to take the Gold medal on the final day of the world championships, also earning a place at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021 in the process. In 2018 Mori and Megu Uyama became the first female Japanese trampoline gymnasts to win a world championships gold medal in trampolining when they clinched victory in the synchro event in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mori has been given a number of awards in Japan for her remarkable achievements, including a citation award by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2016, the Ishikawa Prefecture Sports Special Award in 2018 and the Asahi TV Sports Encouragement Award in 2019.

Born in Tokyo, Mori began trampolining after finding a trampoline near a supermarket and trying it out. After feeling like she was flying, she started a local trampoline class in Tokyo when she was just four years old. Once she reached grade 10 at high school, she moved to Kanazawa with her mother to help improve her trampolining in a new training environment. The move paid off for Mori and in 2017 she joined the national team and picked up a silver medal in the Synchro at the World Championships in Sofia.

The following year she clinched silver at the Asian Games in the individual event, and later won her historic World Championship gold with Uyama in St. Petersburg. 2019 saw Mori go from strength to strength winning individual gold at the World Championships, and she now has her sights set on Tokyo 2021.