(NOAH) Swimming Boy - Jun Akiyama

Weekly Pro 

19th September 2000 (Issue 995)

"I was a bad kid when I was a child (laugh), and my mother was always apologizing for me, so I was well known in the neighborhood. But I wasn't just a kid with a bad reputation, I received many certificates of commendation (laughs). But it's not because I had good grades in school. My grades, especially my swimming skills, were good. I was a bit of an athlete in my hometown (Sennan City, Osaka Prefecture) in my early elementary school years (laughs). I started swimming in the third grade of elementary school, but it wasn't because I wanted to. In fact, I was afraid of water as a child (laughs), I didn't like taking showers, let alone baths. So my grandfather told me that a boy like me shouldn't be such a coward, so he dragged me along and threw me into the pool, and after that, my fear of water disappeared. It was a kind of reverse therapy, but after that, I started to love water like crazy (laughs), and I swam until I graduated from junior high school, and thanks to that, I was able to achieve average grades...I think my time was twenty-five or twenty seconds for the 50m dash when I was in my second year of Junior High. I took part in local competitions several times, and I have about ten certificates of merit. Naturally, these are my most precious possessions, and I treasure them as memories of my youth (laughs)."