Masato Uchishiba, a Japanese-based athlete was on February 1, 2013 convicted for raping a student. Uchishiba is a double gold Olympic Judo medalist and his conviction was a blow to the world of sports. This comes shortly after reports that a national coach beat athletes with a bamboo sword.
The Japanese athlete has been sentenced to five years of imprisonment for assaulting a teenager of a college judo club that he was coaching. A court official said that the teenager was assaulted after she drunkenly fell asleep in a hotel in Tokyo. The 34-year-old athlete was considered as a national hero after he brought home gold medals in 2004 from Athens and in 2008 at the Beijing Games.
According to the prosecutors, the incident occurred in September 2011, when the Kyushu University of Nursing and Social Welfare’s women’s judo club had been on a visit to Tokyo. According to the victim, she was out with her coach after a night of drinking and karaoke and then fell asleep in her hotel room. When she woke up, she found Uchishiba raping her.
When the girl realized what was happening, she refrained saying ‘What are you doing? Stop’, but this did not deter Masato. For now, the victim is not identified in public due to the nature of the crime. However, it was not clear whether real forensic evidence was used in the case or just one person’s word against the others.
