In 1967 Chieko Oda won gold in the individual and all-round events at the All Japan Student Gymnastics Championships, and gold in the team event at the Summer Universiade in Tokyo. These results earned Oda a place on Japan’s Olympic team for the 1968 Mexico City Games where she just missed out on a medal in the all-round team event, finishing fourth. Her best individual result at the Mexico City Olympics came in the floor exercise, where she tied for 14th. The following year she won several medals including an individual gold at the All Japan Gymnastics Championships. She retired from competition shortly after and married fellow gymnast Mitsuo Tsukahara, who won nine Olympic medals during his career. Their son Naoya Tsukahara was also a gymnast who won a team gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Oda later worked as a gymnastics coach for the Japanese Olympic team at multiple editions of the Games from 1976 to 2012.
Japan