Photo: Naomi Osaka/Instagram
The 23-year-old tennis star shared a carousel of photos and videos from her experience in Japan on Sunday via Instagram. She captioned the special post, “a olympic collage.”
Osaka began with a smiling selfie of herself holding up a peace sign on her left hand. The post included several candids from her trip, including images of her trying new foods and a snap of herself video chatting with her adorable French bulldog.
“The most important thing was to deliver a message of diversity and inclusion. In the end, we decided on [Osaka] because she is a great athlete and she has been delivering a variety of messages so we thought she was the best person to be the final torchbearer. It was a decision that the whole organizing committee came to,” said Hioki Takayuki, executive producer of the Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony.
Naomi Osaka/Instagram
“Hey everyone, this isn’t a situation I ever imagined or intended when I posted a few days ago. I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris,” Osaka wrote on Instagram in May.
“I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer,” she added. “More importantly, I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly.”
Naomi Osaka.Clive Brunskill/Getty
On July 16, Netflix premiered the documentaryNaomi Osaka: Playing By Her Own Rules, which details the life and personality of the tennis star. Osaka said she was “terrified” to release the series.
“This isn’t like a tennis match where I win or lose and from there people can say whether I did well or not,“she wrote on Twitterthe day of the premiere. “This is a look into my life from a certain time period and I can’t fight the feeling of wondering how it will be received. This is in some ways my soul and a reflection of who I am.”
At the time, Osaka said she hoped “there are pieces that people can relate to and maybe other pieces that would help people understand why I make the choices I make.”
“If it doesn’t that’s cool too, it took me a while but I realized that I can’t please everyone and I’m really not trying to,” Osaka concluded. “When I go to sleep at night I can only hope I am at peace with myself and I hope the same rings true for anyone reading this.”
source: people.com
