MONTHLY NEWS
May 2002

Family Shares Aerobics Victory

Sixteen-year-old Eiichi Omura wowed spectators with his stellar sportaerobics performance when he became the World Youth Varsity Champion in the Suzuki World Cup 2002, 13th International Aerobics Championship held in Tokyo on April 13 and 14.

Sportaerobics is a sport in which competitors perform an aerobics routine lasting one minute and 45 seconds accompanied by music. It takes a lot of strength and physical endurance to succeed in this sport, and Eiichi has both of these despite being sick with diabetes. Diabetes is a disease that stops a person's body from making enough insulin, preventing the cells in their body from getting enough glucose. (Glucose is a sugar that gives the cells energy so they can do their jobs, helped by a hormone called insulin.) People with diabetes have to take medicine regularly and be very careful about what they eat and how much they exercise. There are two types of diabetes. Eiichi has Type I, which often runs in families and is the more common type for kids.

When Eiichi was in second grade, doctors told his parents he had diabetes and his life was in danger. His mother and aunt are aerobics instructors, and Eiichi had been doing aerobics since he was four, so they helped Eiichi to exercise by doing aerobics with him every day. As he got older, sometimes he would exercise for more than three hours a day. Eiichi has to take medicine every four hours to control his blood sugar, but even then he sometimes feels weak and passes out.

Eiichi decided years ago that he would not give up. "I'm not going to hate my disease. I want to try hard together with it," he says.

His mother says, "Eiichi would often collapse when he danced, and when he went to competitions he would lose." In 1999, though, he took first place in the trio event at the Suzuki Japan Cup, and in 2000 at the same competition he won the pair and trio events. Finally, in 2001 he earned the right compete for Japan at the World Youth Competition in San Francisco. "I really enjoyed competing against the top athletes in the world," said Eiichi. All his practice paid off when he became the world champion for the first time ever that year!

This year's championship was especially significant because he shared the spotlight with his sisters. Twelve-year-old Saori won first place in the Youth Junior Varsity category and thirteen-year-old Tomomi took fifth place behind her brother in the Youth Varsity section. With so many people in the family doing it, it's no wonder Eiichi's mother says, "All we talk about at home is aerobics."

Photos: (Top) Eiichi and his sisters, Saori and Tomomi (Mainichi Shogakusei Shimbun); (middle) Eiichi performs his routine (Japan Aerobic Federation); (bottom) Saori performing at the championship (Japan Aerobic Federation).