Momota Kento remembers 11 March: 'Chills down my spine'
World's top-ranked men's shuttler turns back the clock 10 years on a day he "thought the end might be coming" and looks forward to All England, Tokyo 2020
Momota Kento was all alone in Indonesia. He couldn't help his teammates, and felt helpless himself.
Ten years on, Momota still remembers the Great East Japan Earthquake like it happened yesterday.
"Towards the end of my freshman year in high school, I had an opportunity to take part in a training camp in Indonesia, on my own", Momota recalled during a roundtable interview ahead of Thursday (11 March), the 10-year anniversary of the M9.0 quake that devastated the eastern coastline of Japan.
"When we were training around noon, one of the guys there - looking really dire - calls me over to watch the TV. That’s when I found out.
"They were showing Sendai airport and it looked like it had been washed away. I didn’t know what was going on at first but I could make out certain words like the location and figured out that there had been a quake and then a tsunami.
"One of the locals spoke a bit of Japanese and he told me to call my teammates back in Japan in a hurry but the phones lines had completely crashed. I couldn’t get through to anyone until the evening.
"I was scheduled to leave Indonesia the next day but I was told I might not be able to go back. I remember feeling completely alone.
"I was really worried about my team. When the nuclear plant exploded I thought the end might be coming.
"Chills down my spine".
Far from home
The world's No. 1 men's badminton player is a Kagawa Prefecture native but spent his six junior high and high school years in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture.
Tomioka is on the Pacific coast and is less than 15 kilometres away from the nuclear power plant that melted down as a result of the quake and the ensuing tsunami that reached heights of 16 metres.
Nearly 16,000 lives were claimed - 90 per cent due to drowning - and more than 2,500 remain missing.
Momota found a way return to Japan the day after but it was not until five years later in 2016 that he was able to revisit his adopted hometown in Fukushima.
"It was beyond anything I could have imagined", Momota said of the day he went back to Tomioka High School, which was forced to relocate to another town in the prefecture.
"The shelves had come down, everything had been smashed to bits. My desk, my chair, everything. Seeing it all was so shocking.
"And the gymnasium where I practiced so hard in. The lights had fallen down, glass shattered everywhere. I was speechless - and sad. Sad beyond words can describe.
"I was in Fukushima for six years from junior high. It’s my second home. My badminton career started for me in Fukushima.
"It’s the place that made me who I am today".
All England again
For Momota, 11 March is a special date for another reason.
On this day in 2019, he became the first Japanese male to capture the All England title.
The 26-year-old said he fought the final against Viktor Axelsen for the people of Fukushima.
"I tend to randomly remember things from way back when before a match and just before the final, it occurred to me just how far we had come since the quake", Momota said.
"I remember thinking how I could be a source of inspiration by competing in this match. I was very nervous for the final but for some reason, it all flashed back to me".
Off a third successive championship at the All Japans in December, Momota, in January in Bangkok, was scheduled to compete overseas for the first time since his near-death car wreck in Kuala Lumpur more than a year ago.
But then he tested positive for Covid-19 at the airport on his way to Thailand.
So as fate would have it, All England again will hold special significance for Momota.
The prohibitive Tokyo 2020 gold-medal favourite, though, concedes he is not that confident for the championships starting on 17 March.
"Being honest, I’m not too confident", he said. "We haven’t had a lot of time to train as a squad and I haven’t been able to compete against foreign players. There are a lot of question marks.
"I can’t sit here and say I’ll win it with much confidence but it’s a big tournament and a crucial one looking ahead to the Tokyo Games. I need to keep my chin up and stay strong".
It goes without saying the ultimate goal for Momota down the line is the Games.
And he wants to win it for the people who helped lay the foundations of a burgeoning career.
"It must be fate the 10-year anniversary overlaps with the year of the Tokyo OIympics, at a time when I’m in great shape. I blew it for a lot of people at the last Games and I want to make up for that.
"I need to take a hard look at myself in the mirror. I owe many people for the support they offered when I was down and I want to give back. I have to leave everything out there and win the gold medal to help inspire, offer hope".