is a Japanese former sailor, who specialized in both

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Laser Radial The Laser Radial or ILCA 6 is a popular one-design class of small sailing dinghy, originally built by Laser Performance. It is a singlehanded boat, meaning that it is sailed by one person. The Laser Radial is a variant of the Laser standard, w ...

classes. She captured a silver medal in her respective single-handed boat category at the

2002 Asian Games The 2002 Asian Games ( ko, 2002년 아시아 경기대회/2002년 아시안 게임, Icheoni-nyeon Asia gyeonggi daehoe/Icheoni-nyeon Asian Geim), officially known as the XIV Asian Games ( ko, 제14회 아시아 경기대회/제14회 아시안 � ...

Busan, South Korea Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...

, and was also selected to compete for

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

in two editions of the Olympic Games (2000 and 2004). Sato made her Olympic debut in

Sydney 2000 The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

, where she finished twenty-third in the

class with a satisfying net grade of 172, surpassing Belarusian sailor

Tatiana Drozdovskaya Tatiana Drozdovskaya ( be, Таццяна Яўгенаўна Драздоўская; Łacinka: Tacciana Jaŭhienaŭna Drazdoŭskaja; born 6 December 1978 in Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the larg ...

by a close, four-point margin. When South Korea hosted the

, Sato sailed away vigorously towards a silver-medal finish in the

class with a grade of 16 points, an exact double of the score attained by her Chinese rival and eventual champion Lu Chunfeng. At the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, Sato qualified for her second Japanese team in the

class by virtue of her status as the country's top sailor in her respective category, placing among the top 30 from the Semaine Olympique Francaise nearly three months earlier in

Hyères Hyères (), Provençal Occitan: ''Ieras'' in classical norm, or ''Iero'' in Mistralian norm) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. The old town lies from the sea clustered around t ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. As her previous Games, Sato could not be able to improve her Olympic feat with mediocre marks recorded throughout the eleven-race series, sitting her in twenty-fourth position with 192 net points. Furthermore, Sato's overall score spared her from the far bottom of the leaderboard by a twelve-point edge over the Russian rookie Natalia Ivanova.

References

External links

* * *
Japanese Olympic Team Profile
1978 births Living people Japanese female sailors (sport) Olympic sailors for Japan Sailors at the 2000 Summer Olympics – Europe Sailors at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Europe Asian Games medalists in sailing Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Sailors at the 2002 Asian Games Medalists at the 2002 Asian Games Sportspeople from Yamaguchi Prefecture {{Japan-yachtracing-bio-stub