Cutting an athlete from the Olympics for smoking is a ban too far

Imagine training your entire life to represent your country on the world stage of the Paris Olympics – all the blood, sweat, tears, and endless practice sessions – only to be sent home just one week before the event starts.

And for what reason? What terrible infraction could possibly justify flushing all that effort down the toilet? For one young athlete it was a simple matter of being caught having a cigarette.

The unfortunate Olympian in question is 19-year-old Japanese gymnast Shoko Miyata, who was due to represent the Japanese women’s gymnastics team as its captain at her first Olympics. She won a bronze medal for the balance beam at the 2022 World Championships, and hopes were high for the team to secure a podium place, and with it their first medal since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Unfortunately, Miyata was forced to withdraw from the squad after she was found to be lighting up in her spare time – a violation of the team’s code of conduct.

Sure, smoking doesn’t go hand in hand with the lifestyle of an Olympic sportsperson. But it’s a world away from using sports enhancing drugs, behaving in an unacceptable way, or being involved in corruption – all much more understandably ban-worthy offences.

It also seems as though it was the colossal weight of the pressure to perform that led Miyata to smoking. That may not be an excuse, but it surely should be taken into consideration.

The issue is that smoking and drinking are both illegal in Japan for those under the age of 20. However, Miyata wasn’t actually in Japan at the time. She was more than 6,000 miles away in Monaco at the training camp ahead of the Olympics starting on 26 July.

Moreover, she’s only two months away from her 20^th birthday – it’s not like she’s 14. Should the country’s strict rules still apply to her while she’s not even there? After all, she’s an adult and can make her own decisions. It all just seems incredibly harsh.

After reportedly being seen smoking, Miyata was “under investigation” by the Japan Gymnastics Association. She admitted to it, and so was sent home, arriving back in Japan on Friday 19 July – with her dreams shattered, and years of hard work wasted.

Miyata’s coach, Mutsumi Harada, reportedly said she had been “reckless”, but explained that she had been “under extreme pressure to perform at the highest level” and that “she was spending her days really burdened with so much pressure,” while wiping tears away. She added: “I would implore people to understand that.”

The massive health impacts smoking can have are clear, so there is reason for the slowly growing global war on smoking, which has been bubbling away in the UK for some years. Our own proposed smoking ban was initially a Conservative policy, though the new Labour government is planning to continue with it. If it goes through, it will mean anyone in the UK born after 1 January 2009 will never be able to buy tobacco legally and will largely follow in the footsteps of the measures introduced in New Zealand in December.

Any improvement on our nation’s overall health is of course a positive. Our NHS is already stretched to the limit, and smoking is responsible for a wide range of respiratory diseases, cancers, and ultimately deaths. We shouldn’t be encouraging anybody to take up the habit.

But it does feel to me as though the energy expended on bans such as the one on Miyata is somewhat disproportionate. Numbers of smokers in this country have been consistently dwindling for decades, although the number is 6.4 million people. The number of people who have never tried smoking is now at 62 per cent, compared to 37 per cent 50 years ago, according to smoking charity Ash. Of course, some ex-smokers have moved on to vaping, but you can’t deny that the number of smokers is nowhere near as high as it once was.

For me, it’s about choice. As adults, we can make the decision to smoke or not ourselves. The perils of alcohol and sugar – both of which also cause the NHS billions – aren’t tarnished with the same brush.

We’re supposed to be able to choose and to manage our vices – from smoking, to drinking, to eating unhealthy foods – ourselves, using our own judgement. It’s a pillar of democracy. These kinds of overreactions are not the answer.

Miyata isn’t being replaced, and so the team (who are all younger than Miyata and all first-time Olympians) will have to compete as a four instead of a five, putting them at a huge disadvantage.

Should such a harsh punishment after breaking a rather trivial rule come above the athlete’s years of hard work? In this case, apparently so.