Kōji Murofushi

Kōji Murofushi
Kōji Murofushi at the World Championships 2011 in Daegu
Full name	Kōji Alexander Murofushi
nation	Japan
birthday	October 8, 1974
place of birth	Numazu ,  Japan
size	187 cm
Weight	97 kg
Career
discipline	Hammer throw
Best performance	84.86 m (June 29, 2003 in Prague )
society	Mizuno Track Club
status	resigned
End of career	2016
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 1 × World championships 1 × 1 × 1 × Asian Games 2 × 1 × 0 × East Asian Games 2 × 0 × 1 × Asian Championships 1 × 3 × 0 × Goodwill Games 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold 2004 Athens 82.91 m bronze 2012 London 78.71 m Athletics World Cup gold 2011 Daegu 81.24 m silver 2001 Edmonton 82.92 m bronze 2003 Paris / Saint-Denis 80.12 m Asian Games gold 1998 Bangkok 78.57 m gold 2002 Busan 78.72 m silver 1994 Hiroshima 67.48 m East Asian Games gold 1997 Busan 73.40 m gold 2001 Osaka 79.68 m bronze 1993 Shanghai 66.78 m Asian Championships gold 2002 Colombo 80.45 m silver 1993 Manila 65.54 m silver 1995 Jakarta 69.24 m silver 1998 Fukuoka 74.17 m Goodwill Games gold 2001 Brisbane 82.94 m
last change: October 22, 2017

Kōji Alexander Murofushi ( Japanese 室 伏 ア レ ク サ ン ダ ー 広 治 Murofushi Arekusandā Kōji ; born October 8, 1974 in Numazu , Shizuoka Prefecture ) is a former Japanese athlete . The hammer thrower is an Olympic and world champion.

Career

Murofushi started at the World Championships in Gothenburg in 1995 , in Athens in 1997 and in Seville in 1999 , but did not get beyond a tenth place (1997). At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney he was ninth.

With the silver win at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton , he advanced to the top of the world. In 2002 he became Asian champion, and on June 29, 2003 he achieved the longest throw of the last 15 years in Prague: 84.86 m. This was followed by a bronze medal at the 2003 World Championships in Paris / Saint-Denis .

In the hammer throw final at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens , he initially took silver with 82.91 m. After the original first place winner , the Hungarian Adrián Annus , was disqualified for refusing a doping test , Murofushi received the gold medal.

In 2007 he was sixth in front of a home crowd at the World Championships in Osaka . At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing , he was fifth.

At the World Championships 2011 in Daegu Murofushi won the title with 81.24 m. Eight years after his Olympic gold in Athens, Murofushi was able to enjoy another medal. In 2012 he won the bronze medal in London.

The extremely popular athlete in Japan is 1.87 m tall and weighs 97 kg. He comes from a family of athletes. His sister Yuka Murofushi is a discus and hammer thrower. His father Shigenobu Murofushi was also an Olympian ( Munich , Montreal , Los Angeles ) and held the Japanese hammer throw record for 23 years. His mother, Serafina Moritz, is a former Romanian javelin thrower from Timișoara . She was European junior champion in Leipzig in 1968 and Romanian national champion in 1970, before she met Shigenobu Murofushi at the University of Turin in 1972 and moved with him to Japan. In the 1980s, the couple separated and Moritz settled in the United States .

After failing to qualify for his fifth Olympic Games in a row at the Japanese Championships in June 2016 with 64.74 m and 12th place , Murofushi announced his retirement. He is currently the Sports Director of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Organizing Committee .

Web links

Commons : Koji Murofushi  - Collection of Images

• Kōji Murofushi in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Kōji Murofushi in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ HDsports.at: Bolt triumphs with Olympic record , August 5, 2012
2. ↑ prosport.ro: Sângele bănăţean îi clocoteşte în vene lui Koji Murofushi: "Jumătate din bronzul meu e al României!" Article of August 10, 2012 (Romanian)
3. ↑ japantimes.co.jp: Iconic Murofushi confirms retirement article from July 8, 2016 (English)