Nationality South Korea Strokes Synchronized swimming Sport Swimming | Weight 50 kg (110 lb) Height 1.58 m (5 ft 2 in) Name Kim Mi-jinsu | |
Born 27 November 1969 (age 54) ( 1969-11-27 ) | ||
Kim Mi-jin-su (born 27 November 1969) is a South Korean former synchronized swimmer. She competed in the women's solo and women's duet competitions at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
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Early life
Kim is a third-generation Korean resident of Japan, and was born in Izumiōtsu, Osaka Prefecture. She used the Japanese name Mizuho Kōchi (高智 美津穂). She began participating in synchronized swimming from her fifth year of elementary school, and was trained at the Hamadera Swimming School (浜寺水練学校) in Sakai, where her coach was Akiko Motoyoshi, the younger sister of Japanese Olympic bronze medallist Miwako Motoyoshi. She went on to attend Hagoromo Academy High School (羽衣学園高等学校) in Takaishi. She entered the Osaka University of Health and Sport Sciences in 1987.
Career
Kim competed in Japanese national championships, but could not represent Japan in international competition because she was not a Japanese citizen. In December 1987, she was invited by the Korea Swimming Federation (대한수영연맹), South Korea's official aquatics governing body, to be part of the first delegation to represent South Korea in synchronized swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. She again represented South Korea in the duet routine at the 1991 World Aquatics Championships with partner Choe Jeong-yun, and placed thirteenth. She placed first in the duet routine at the 1991 Japan Synchro Challenge Cup (日本シンクロチャレンジカップ) with partner Chiaki Yamamura (山村千晶).
After her wedding in 1993 to a Japanese man from Hiroshima, she used the married name Mizuho Katayama (片山 美津穂; later 片山 満津芳). She moved to Hiroshima, and became an instructor at the Hiroshima Synchronized Swimming Club, a board member of the Hiroshima Prefectural Swimming Federation, and a synchronized swimming referee for the National Sports Festival of Japan. She was the coach for the Japanese team at the 2003 and 2004 Swiss Open Synchronized Swimming organized by Limmat-Nixen Zürich. She was later the head coach for Japan's junior synchronized swimming team at the Asia Swimming Federation's 2007 Asian Age Group Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia and the 2008 FINA World Junior Synchronised Swimming Championships in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She was promoted to head coach of Japan's national synchronized swimming team for the 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome, Italy.