Mayumi Narita Dies at 55, Japanese Para Swimming Legend Known as ‘Queen of the Water’ Won 15 Paralympic Golds

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:35 JST, September 6, 2025

Mayumi Narita, Japan’s legendary para swimmer who won 15 Paralympic gold medals, has died at the age of 55, the Japanese Para-Swimming Federation announced.

She passed away due to intrahepatic bile duct cancer at 1:48 a.m. on Friday in Kawasaki. Her funeral will be held on Sept. 14 in the city.

Despite only starting to swim at 23, she earned a total of 20 Paralympic medals in her long career. At the 2004 Athens Paralympics, she topped the podium in seven events, including the 100 freestyle S4 and 50 backstroke S4, demonstrating her dominance as “queen of the water.”

The Kanagawa Prefecture native became paralyzed in the lower half of her body at the age of 13 after developing transverse myelitis.

Narita made her Paralympics debut at the 1996 Atlanta Games and competed in four successive Games through Beijing in 2008, after which she retired.

She later returned to the pool in 2015 and participated in two more Paralympics, Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021.

Narita later served as a director of the organizing committee for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics before retiring from competition for a second time after the Tokyo Games.

“I have not accepted the reality of her sudden death,” said Junichi Kawai, a Paralympic gold medalist in men’s swimming who is now a top official of the Japanese Paralympic Committee. “Her feats still stand as a milestone no one has managed to eclipse.”