Miya Tachibana (JPN)

Honor Synchronized / Artistic Swimmer (2011)

The information on this page was written the year of their induction.

FOR THE RECORD: 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES: bronze (team); 2000 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (team); 2004 OLYMPIC GAMES: silver (duet, team); 1994 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (duet), bronze (team); 1998 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (duet, team), bronze (solo); 2001 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: gold (duet), bronze (solo), 2003 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: silver (duet, team); 1999 FINA WORLD CUP: silver (duet, team), bronze (solo); 2002 FINA WORLD CUP: silver (solo, duet); 1994 ASIAN GAMES: gold (duet); 1998 ASIAN GAMES: gold (solo, duet); 2002 ASIAN GAMES: gold (solo, duet); 22 JAPAN NATIONAL CHAMPI­ONSHIPS: gold (10 solo, 12 duet).

Miya Tachibana grew up in Otsu, Shiga, Japan loving the water so much that by the fourth grade, she was competing in synchronized swimming. By high school she was winning the Junior World Cham­pionships. Following in the footsteps of her Hall of Fame predeces­sor, Mikako Kotani, she became one of the world’s most successful synchronized swimmers, and Japan’s most decorated Olympic and World Championship synchronized swimmer of all time.

At three Asian Games, she won all gold medals in solo and duet. At three World Championships, from 1994 to 2003, she placed second in duet. Following the 1998 Perth World Championships, Miya re­ceived the FINA Prize for her outstanding performances that year.

Competing in three Olympic Games, she won five medals. Her Olympic performances began in 1996 in Atlanta, with Japan winning the bronze med­al in the team event, the only synchronized swimming event of the Atlanta Games. Four years later in Sydney, she and teammate Miho Takeda won the silver medal in duet, less than one point behind the Russian duo of Hall of Famer’s Olga Brusnikina and Maria Kisseleva. Miya and Miho repeated the silver-medal wins four years later in Athens, the only duo to medal in suc­cessive Olympic Games after the Josephson twins in 1988 and 1992. Japan continued in the silver medal count for the Team Event in both 2000 and 2004. At Japan’s National Championships, Miya won 22 national titles, ten of them solo.