Murakami Mai

Murakami Mai was born on August 5, 1996, in Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan. She started gymnastics at the age of three, following in the footsteps of her parents and siblings, who were also involved in the sport. During her childhood, she also participated in a children’s theatre troupe and appeared in TV dramas. Her gymnastics career began to take shape during elementary school when she joined Yukio Iketani’s gymnastics club. By 2010, she had achieved significant success at the National Junior High School Championships, winning the all-around, balance beam, and floor exercise titles. That same year, she also secured the floor exercise title at the senior-level All-Japan Championships, leading to her first selection to the national team. A knee injury caused her to miss most of the 2011 season, but she returned in 2012 to win another floor exercise title at the All-Japan Championships.

Murakami’s career progressed through notable international appearances, including the 2013 City of Jesolo Trophy and a fourth-place finish on the floor exercise at the 2013 World Championships. She consistently performed well at national championships, securing a berth on the 2014 World Championships team. Japan finished eighth in the team final there. In 2015, after initially being named a second alternate, she joined the World Championships team due to an injury and helped Japan to a fifth-place finish. Her individual performance, placing sixth in the all-around, marked the best finish by a Japanese woman in six years at that event. She achieved her first all-around national title at the 2016 All-Japan Championships and represented Japan at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, where the team placed fourth, and she finished 14th in the all-around final and seventh in the floor exercise final.

The period between 2017 and 2021 marked the pinnacle of Murakami’s competitive career. In 2017, she earned her first World Championship gold medal in the floor exercise in Montreal, becoming the first Japanese woman to win World gold on this event since Keiko Tanaka-Ikeda in 1954. The following year, at the 2018 World Championships in Doha, she won a silver medal in the all-around, a historic first for a Japanese woman, and a bronze in the floor exercise. Despite a back injury in 2019 that prevented her from competing at the World Championships, she returned strong, winning multiple titles at the 2020 All-Japan Senior Championships. Her final Olympic appearance at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics saw her win a bronze medal in the floor exercise, making her the first Japanese female gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal. She concluded her competitive career at the 2021 World Championships in Kitakyushu, winning another gold medal on the floor exercise and a bronze on the balance beam before announcing her retirement. After retiring, she began coaching at Nippon Sport Science University and was named the head coach of the Japan women’s national artistic gymnastics team in 2024.