Hina Hayata: “Right now, my head feels like it did when I was in high school—I just can’t stop enjoying Table Tennis” (Part 1)

Hina Hayata　

The glory etched at the Paris Olympics, and the pain in her left arm that remained as its price. At the edge of despair, Hina Hayata chose to sever herself from the pursuit of her former ideals. Not a comeback, but a rebirth. We get to the truth behind the second chapter Hayata has begun.<March 2026>

◆ Hina Hayata
Born July 7, 2000, from Fukuoka Prefecture. She started table tennis at Ishida Table Tennis Club at age 4, and finished runner-up in the 2012 All Japan Championships Hopes division. She won the 2013 and 2014 National Junior High School Championships. She won the 2016 Inter-High Championships. She won the Singles title at the All Japan Championships in 2023, 2024, and 2025 for three consecutive titles, and won the Women’s Dobles title at the All Japan Championships in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023 for five consecutive titles. She placed third in Singles at the 2023 World Championships. She won the bronze medal in Singles and the silver medal in the team event at the 2024 Paris Olympics. World ranking: 9th (as of March 30). Affiliated with Nippon Life」

She had long been tormented by the gap between ideal and reality

　Hina Hayata spent a year struggling in the space between light and darkness. Her left wrist injury dragged on, and while she struggled with the gap between ideal and reality, she kept moving forward anyway. Even when she won, there was a lingering sense of unease she could not shake, and a feeling of being pulled back to her former self.

　To break through that stagnation, what did she give up, and what did she choose? In the midst of her uncertainty, the light Hayata found was not a return to the past, but the resolve to step into a new version of herself.

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●─Looking back on this past year, what kind of year was it?

Hina Hayata (hereafter, Hayata)　It felt like I was walking through darkness the whole time. Just when I thought I could see the light, it would disappear again. Even when I tried to grasp it, it still felt far away, or I would catch a glimpse of it and then it would vanish. Basically, I feel like I was constantly struggling through that kind of painful situation.

●─Was that light and darkness about wins and losses in matches?

Hayata　No, if anything, the bigger part was everything other than that. Of course, my left arm condition had a lot to do with it, and there were many things I simply couldn’t control. That sometimes led directly to wins and losses. There were long stretches when I felt like, “I want to do it, but I can’t,” or “I have to hold back right now.”

　It was more like my sense of self wasn’t coming back, like I was in some other world. Even when I tried to restore it, I couldn’t, and with the limitations from the tape, even when I tried to create something different, the good feeling I had before injuring my arm in Paris kept lingering in my mind. Because of that, I felt like I was constantly being tormented by the gap between ideal and reality.