Masae Kasai
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Masae Kasai (河西 昌枝 Kasai Masae, 14 July 1933 – 3 October 2013) was a volleyball player from Japan, who was a member of the Japan Women's National Team, Oriental Witches,[1] that won the gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics.[2]
Masae Kasai was born in Minami-Alps, Yamanashi, and started playing volleyball when the sport was still played with nine players a side in Japan (six are used internationally). She joined the Nichibo fiber spinning company right out of high school, first playing for corporation's Ashikaga (Tochigi) team, later for the one from Kaizuka (Osaka). The latter team dominated the women's sport in the late 1950s and 1960s, and when the Japanese started playing according to international rules, Nichibo Kaizuka's players formed the national team.
Kasai and her team mates débuted at the 1960 FIVB World Championship in Brazil, finishing behind the Soviet Union. Two years later, the Japanese won the World Championship title, defeating the Soviet squad before a Moscow audience. When volleyball made its Olympic début in Tokyo, they lived up to high expectations by again beating the Soviet Union in the final round-robin match, in straight sets.
After the Olympics, team captain Kasai met with the Japanese prime minister and complained to him that she had not been able to find a husband because of the difficult training regimen. The Prime Minister set her up with a date and the two later married. She later went on to become a volleyball coach in Japan and China, and sat on the board of the Japanese Volleyball Association.
In 2008, Kasai was inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame.[2][3]
Personal life and death
Masae Kasai (who changed her last name to Nakamura after she married) died on 3 October 2013, in Tokyo from intracranial hemorrhage.[4]
References
External links
- Template:Sports links
- International Volleyball Hall of Fame profile
- Video of award of gold medal in 1964 Tokyo Olympics（the person who receives gold medal, bending down）
- Masae Kasai died at 80.
- Sports-reference.com profile (archived)
Template:Japan squad 1960 FIVB Women's World Championship Template:Japan squad 1962 FIVB Women's World Championship Template:Japan women volleyball team 1964 Olympics Template:Volleyball Hall of Fame members Template:Authority control
- Pages with script errors
- 1933 births
- 2013 deaths
- Sportspeople from Yamanashi Prefecture
- Volleyball players at the 1964 Summer Olympics
- Olympic volleyball players for Japan
- Japanese women's volleyball players
- Olympic medalists in volleyball
- Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
- Olympic gold medalists for Japan
- International Volleyball Hall of Fame inductees
- 20th-century Japanese sportswomen
- Volleyball players from Yamanashi Prefecture