Hugo Hoyama


Hugo Hoyama is a retired Brazilian table tennis player of Japanese origin who has won several medals in single, double and team events in the Latin American Table Tennis Championships.
Along with Gustavo Tsuboi and Thiago Monteiro, Hoyama was part of the winning team at the 2007 Pan American Games and 2011 Pan American Games.

Career

Born in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, Hoyama broke the Brazilian record of most gold medals in the Pan American Games, which used to belong to the Brazilian swimmer Gustavo Borges and participated in every Olympic game since debuting as an Olympian at the 1992 Olympic Games and competed in the 2012 Olympic Games, where he plans to retire as an Olympian.
In 2007, Hoyama was invited by Carlos Nuzman from the Brazilian Olympic Committee to be the flag bearer for Brazil at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara. According to Nuzman, the choice of Hoyama displays support from the committee to all sports that Brazilians play.
Hugo is the founder of the Hugo Hoyama Foundation. Other than his native Portuguese, Hoyama also speaks English, Spanish and Japanese

In popular culture

Hoyama is briefly mentioned in the eighth episode of the fourth season of The Office American TV series. Table tennis plays a major role in the plot and Dwight Schrute says he even has a life-size poster of Hugo Hoyama in his room.