Tokyo, 28 April, /AJMEDIA/
Two-time Olympic men’s gymnastics all-around champion Kohei Uchimura visited Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at his office Thursday in Tokyo with a group of current and former gymnasts who will deliver a message of peace in Hiroshima ahead of next month’s Group of Seven summit.
The gymnasts from the G-7 member countries will take part in the “G-7 Gymnastics Hiroshima” event this week ahead of the May 19-21 summit, which is likely to focus heavily on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
International Gymnastics Federation President Morinari Watanabe, Tokyo Games floor bronze medalist Mai Murakami and Russian-born American 2008 women’s all-around Olympic champion Nastia Liukin were also among the group who met the prime minister.
The athletes will visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum to lay flowers at the cenotaph for A-bomb victims on Friday and meet junior and senior high school students the next day.
Uchimura, who is from Nagasaki, the second city hit by an American atomic bomb attack after Hiroshima in the closing days of World War II, said they hoped to encourage world leaders to take steps toward peace at the summit.
“All of us here wish to contribute to peace through sports,” said Uchimura, who won all-around Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016.
Kishida said, “I would like to demonstrate leadership…at the summit and cooperate with other G-7 countries to convey to the world the G-7’s determination for peace, stability and prosperity.”
