Atsushi YAMAMOTO

Para athletics is still my main field. I have always engaged in other sports during the Para athletics off-season or when I have spare time between competitions. Among them, snowboard is something that I am seriously committed to with a goal to compete at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Paralympics. I am planning to train at many different locations, including overseas, to get me in condition to qualify for the PyeongChang Paralympics as a Para snowboarder.

One of the reasons is that snowboard was the first sport that I tried after losing my leg. The other is that when snowboarding, I’d always had a gut feeling that I might be able to win a competition if Para snowboard ever became a Paralympic sport.
To begin with, back around 2000, when I started to wear a prosthesis, a snowboarder with a prosthesis was quite rare in Japan. I was reasonably good at snowboarding—I could glide down the hill, jump and so on—I was also still young, and that might have added to why I believed that I was the best snowboarder at the time!

I started snowboarding when I was in 7th grade. It was my favorite sport at the time. I lost my leg in a motorcycle accident when I was in 11th grade. I loved snowboarding so much that I asked my doctor, right before the amputation, “Will I still be able to snowboard (even after amputation)?” Since I didn’t seem to care about losing my leg, the nurses were concerned whether I was okay. People around me wondered, shouldn’t he be feeling terrible?

No, not really. I didn’t think too deeply about it. I didn’t have the sense that I wouldn’t be able to do anything without my leg. In fact, I was thinking more that I wanted to continue snowboarding even without my leg.

Yes, I did. I think I like to push myself. No matter what the sport, I always want to win. For example, besides athletics and snowboard, I also do the triathlon, which, to me, is more like spiritual training than a competitive sport. It involves the kind of rigor that I don’t experience in track and field, and it gives me an indescribable feeling of accomplishment. The 100m sprint and the long jump, for example, are over in a matter of seconds. So, even when I win a medal in these events, I feel pretty light-hearted about it. It’s like, okay, I got it. The triathlon, on the other hand, is like a marathon. When I complete a race, I have a greater feeling of accomplishment, regardless of my race time.

It was my encounter with sports prosthesis. It was around the time when such prosthesis were being introduced to Japan. I happened to have an opportunity to try one on. I thought that the design of the prosthetic leg was so cool, I wanted to try running with it.

In Para athletics, many of the prosthetic blades used for sprints are lightweight and the ground reaction force transmits rapidly. On the other hand, the blades used in the long jump are a bit heavier, which makes the force of contacting the ground bigger to get more ground reaction force. The main difference between them is the amount of carbon that is contained in the prosthesis. Generally speaking, the more carbon used in a prosthetic leg, the bigger the ground reaction force that an athlete gets.

When snowboarding, you need to control your prosthetic leg. A prosthesis for snowboarding is designed to resist the force generated from bending knees, then release it by extending knees. The structure of the prosthetic foot part is also unique. It’s designed to release the force easily using a combination of pneumatic and hydraulic pressure systems to enable the dynamic turns of snowboarding.
I play golf, too, and use a prosthesis with a cushiony-pad for the twisting movements of a golf swing. There are also specific prosthetic legs for cycling. Each prosthesis has a different feature according to the sport it’s designed for.

They’ve changed remarkably, especially from around 2010. As sports-specific prostheses were developed and introduced, athletes started to use new prostheses and modify their technique and form to fit the prosthesis they were using. That enabled them to break world records. Not only that, sports-specific prosthetic knee parts have also been developed recently. There are outstanding technical advancements being made in fitting protheses.

Frankly speaking, I think things are at a standstill.. Things have not fallen behind but there has been no progress either.
Take the case of Oscar Pistorius, a South African Para athlete who competed in the London 2012 Olympic Games. He hadn’t achieved a record that defeated able-bodied athletes, so there was no problem for him to compete in the Olympic Games. Meanwhile, Markus already held a record at that time that could possibly defeat the records of top athletes at the Olympic Games. Because of that, it was felt that he should not be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. I think the sentiment that Para athletes should not be stronger than able-bodied athletes is still prevailing.

Yes. But I think that’s impossible.

I’m doing research at university, and there is data that shows that in the long jump, a prosthetic leg gives an athlete advantage in regard to the moment of takeoff. It means that a characteristic of prosthetic blade long jumpers is that their runup speed doesn’t slowdown in the takeoff.
Long jump data shows a very clear correlation between the runup speed and the distance of a jump. According to data, I shouldn’t be able to mark a 6.62m jump with my 100m sprint record. The data shows able-bodied long jumpers with the same 100m record as mine jumping less than 6 meters. Of course, there is some margin of error, but prosthetic blade long jumpers’ records are significantly off from the standard finding of long jump data. That’s why as far as I can tell from the data that I’ve seen, I, unfortunately, can say that prosthetics do provide an unfair advantage in the case of the long jump.

I felt sorry for him. I think that it’s only natural for an athlete to want to compete against strong opponents. So, if I were him, I would have desperately wanted to take part in the Olympics. With that said, I think that prosthetic athletes came into the limelight through that news, and there was a lot of debate that ensued. I see that as a good thing. I heard a lot of different opinions, too, like, “Are prosthetic legs really advantageous?” or “What’s wrong with having a Para athlete compete in the Olympics?!”
Even so, I personally feel that athletes wearing prosthetic legs and able-bodied athletes will be competing in different environments for now. It might still be difficult for us to compete against each other in the Olympics, but I think it’s important that we create more opportunities where both athletes with prosthetic legs and able-bodied athlete can compete together. Opening up smaller-scale international competitions, such as the Grand Prix series or the League tournaments to more athletes would be a start. I know there have already been such cases in Germany and Great Britain.

I honestly don’t think anything nothing will change under current circumstances. The more strong athletes with prostheses there are who threaten the records of able-bodied athletes, the more data of we will be able to collect on prostheses. I think that we’d then be ready to restart the discussion.
Actually, the prosthesis worn by Markus is nothing special. It has no major difference from the ones that many other Para athletes use. Even so, he is the only one so far who can compete neck-in-neck against able-bodied athletes. Is it due to his ability, or his prosthesis? We can’t tell which it is at this moment.

I hope that more and more people will discuss this issue. If it’s acknowledged that the Paralympians can outdo the Olympians in terms of records, there will be more interest in Para sports, which will eventually make the Paralympic Games more exciting to people.

Why? Hmmm… It’s hard to explain. I was rather frustrated that nothing was being done when we could have been doing more.

Yes. The staff of the organizations, the officers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government—I couldn’t sense any enthusiasm on their part to unite and make the event successful.
For example, Para athletes have often been invited to give lectures at schools, which amounted to over 100 engagements just in the Tokyo metropolitan area. If we had publicized the championships at those occasions better, that could have brought about better results. The reason for people coming could be anything. It could simply be something like, “I saw Atsushi Yamamoto on TV once, so I want to see him live,” or “I might as well go because it’s free.” We need to encourage people to come to the stadium. Of course, we also need media coverage, but I wish we could have done more to appeal Para athletics directly to the public to have them attend.

It has changed significantly. When I first started, people said, “Paralympics? What’s that?” Today, when I ask the audience at my talks whether they know the Paralympics, more than 90% of the children answer “yes.” Public awareness has definitely increased. However, if you ask about individual athletes, most of them don’t know who’s who. So, I think the next step is probably to generate greater interest in Para athletes.
I think that just about everybody involved in Para sports recognizes the name Atsushi Yamamoto. The thing is, if you look around the world, people who know about Para sports account for only 0.1% or less of the whole. In other words, 99.9% of people in the world still haven’t heard of me. I want to boost that figure, even if only by 1 or 2 percent. The best way to do that is to work hand-in-hand with the media, I think.

Not so much for the time being. I’m not feeling any improvement in my physical strength, but I think that my records are getting better through technical improvements. I’ve also learned to take a precautionary break before getting injured. Another thing that’s helping greatly, I think, is that I train with students. I think I’m able to stay young in sprit by being with students.

Yes, everyone keeps reminding me of that! (laughter) The thing is, you only live once. What matters most is that we enjoy ourselves. That’s why, if there were to be anything more important to me than athletics, it would be being able to feel enjoyment in what I’m doing.

Although they’re longer compared to some year ago, there are more athletes from my generation who have already retired than those who are still competing. There’s an increase in athletes around 19 or 20 years of age who are winning medals right now.

Yes, I did, but it was a domestic event. I can keep pushing myself by setting the sight on the PyeongChang Paralympics, but the important thing is how close I can get to world standards. I haven’t experienced global competition in snowboard yet. I think I’ll get even more excited about (training and snowboarding) once I experience global competition.

As far as athletics goes, it might be after TokyoParalympics, though I honestly don’t know. I’d like to keep going as long as I’m having fun... But everybody has a different view. The thing is, I still haven’t got a gold medal, which I’m craving for in the Tokyo Paralympics. I want to retire with a good result.

You know, that’s not really my problem. Of course, I’d be ready to hand over all the techniques and knowledge that I have if asked by the younger generation. That’s something I already do.
People say that It’s quite rare for a single athlete to keep top level performance up for such a long time as I’m doing. Sometimes, people treat me like an oddball (laughter). But, as I said, I want to spend my life enjoying myself. So, I think I’d be able to keep things up so long as I feel that way. Whether it’s athletics, snowboarding or even media exposure or events, I enjoy them all. Every different experience that I have brings me a different experience.

That’s probably true. I have always been determined to do what I enjoy, and I stay away from what I don’t. I also have to do things that I don’t like in order to do what I enjoy. Like studying English, for example. I hate studying but I need to be able to speak English if I want to talk to my friends from overseas. In that sense, I think I’ve been able to proactively engage in even those things that I don’t necessarily like.