Kajihara won her third consecutive ASIAD track cycling gold medal at the Izu Circuit and broke down in tears when talking about how her younger brother Hyogo helped her through difficult times.
“After missing the chance to win a medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, I was really depressed,” said Kajihara, Japan ’s first female cyclist to win an Olympic medal – a silver medal in track cycling at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. “I hit rock bottom. And my younger brother said, ‘You shouldn’t be so sad.’ Even with cancer, he’s still so optimistic.”
The 29-year-old star added, “She went through an incredibly difficult battle with cancer, alone in a hospital in Tokyo. It must have been tough, but she never complained. She told me, ‘As long as you’re alive, you’ve already won.’ My sister was right. That made me realize that I need to be grateful for being alive, grateful for the people who have supported me, and I need to enjoy life.”
This is Kajihara's fourth gold medal across the Asian Games; she also won the team event in Hangzhou three years ago. “Every day my younger brother tells me to ‘enjoy it.’ I think I’m finally starting to understand the true meaning of it,” Kajihara, who also won the silver medal in the team chase event at the 20th Asian Games, added. “Before, whenever I competed in Izu, he would come to watch and be by my side. So I kept thinking: Maybe he’s here? I’m sure he’s here, and I thought about him so many times throughout the race.”
Source: https://thethao.sggp.org.vn/nu-hoang-xe-dap-nhat-ban-kajihara-danh-tang-hcv-cho-em-trai-da-khuat-post874733.html
