Baseball/Softball - UTSUGI Reika

She won a bronze medal with the Japanese women's softball team at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. She had claimed silver four years earlier at the 2000 Games in Sydney. (SportsDeskOnline, 03 Sep 2019; sports-reference.com, 2004)

She won gold at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, Republic of Korea, and claimed silver at the 1998 Games in Bangkok, Thailand. (SportsDeskOnline, 03 Sep 2019)

She led the Japanese women's team to gold at the Asian Games in 2014 and 2018. (olympicchannel.com, 19 Mar 2019; kyodonews.net, 24 Aug 2018)

She coached the Japanese women's team to gold at the world championships in 2012 and 2014. She also guided the team to silver in the 2018 edition of the tournament in Chiba, Japan. (olympicchannel.com, 19 Mar 2019)

She was named Best National Team Coach of 2014 by the World Baseball Softball Confederation [WBSC]. (wbsc.org, 15 Oct 2017)

The softball stadium in Takasaki, Japan, has been named Utsugi Stadium after Reika and Japanese softball representative Taeko Utsugi. (olympicchannel.com, 19 Mar 2019)

2016

In 2003 she took up the role of player-coach of Japanese side Takasaki, before becoming head coach the following year. She was head coach of the Japan women's national team from 2011 to 2015.