Wikipedia - Jun Mizutani
Jun Mizutani (水谷 隼, Mizutani Jun, born 9 June 1989) is a retired Japanese table tennis player. He became the youngest Japanese national champion at the age of 17. His consecutive singles titles at the national championships from 2007 to 2011 made him the first man to win the event five times in a row.
Throughout his career, Mizutani competed in 4 Olympic games from 2008 to 2020. After defeating Vladimir Samsonov for the bronze medal by 4–1 in the 2016 Summer Olympics, he finally seized his first singles medal in the three main international tournaments. It was also the first Olympic table tennis singles medal of his country.
History
2016
At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Mizutani earned a bronze medal in the singles event which was his first singles medal at the Olympics, after defeating Vladimir Samsonov in the bronze medal match. Later, he received a silver medal in the team event with his teammates Koki Niwa and Maharu Yoshimura losing to the Chinese team.
2021
In March, Jun Mizutani played in the WTT Star Contender event at WTT Doha, but he suffered a round-of-16 upset to Ruwen Filus.
At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Mizutani and Mima Ito defeated Liu Shiwen and Xu Xin in the mixed doubles finals to become the first non-Chinese to win gold at an Olympic table tennis event since 2004. Additionally, Mizutani earned a bronze medal in the team event alongside Koki Niwa and Tomokazu Harimoto beating the South Korean team.
Mizutani retired after the 2020 Summer Olympics which was confirmed by World Table Tennis on 10 February 2022. His increasing sight difficulties had forced him to wear special glasses during matches and he cited that it contributed to him retiring.