After achieving Olympic superstardom, many athletes go on to bigger and better sports-related gigs — they often continue training, or nab sweet endorsement deals that pay them to be the amazing athletic machines that they already are. However, twenty-one year-old swimmer Satomi Suzuki isn’t just any athlete — she’s also a huge nerd who dreams of voicing video game and anime characters.
If her medals and winning smile were any indication of her personality type, you might assume Suzuki to be sporty and outgoing: she’s won two medals at the London Olympics so far, a silver for the 200m breaststroke and a bronze for the 100m breaststroke (in addition to helping team Japan pick up a bronze during the 4×100 relay). However, according to The Hoichi Shimbun, Suzuki is more of “an indoor type”: during her stay at the Olympic Village, she’s passed the time by playing Sengoku Basara, a historical action game loosely based upon the Sengoku era in the history of feudal Japan.
According to Kotaku, her childhood coach recently said,”When we talked on the voice back in May, she wasn’t all, ‘I’m going to win medals!’ No, she was saying, ‘I’m going to be a voice actress!'” She’s already make headway in the field, befriending befriend voice actor Ryuzou Ishino, who voices Chousokabe Motochika in Sengoku Basara 2, via Twitter.
When she returns home to Japan after a glorious showing during this year’s Olympics, she plans on officially pursuing voice acting, potentially making her the first Olympic medal winner/voice actress. We really hope she pursues her dream, mostly because it would be totally awesome to see her represent nerds and athletes alike — see, we’re not that different at all! Playing soccer in middle school and also liking video games and anime is totally similar to being Satomi Suzuki, right? Right?
We wish her the best of luck in her future career, though if she pursues it with the same dedication behind her amazing swimming, she’ll hardly need it.
(via Kotaku.)
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