From the Abes to the Ohtanis: How siblings shape athletic development
But many sports fans may not know there's an additional sibling.
Yuichiro Abe, the oldest of the three, is the lesser-known sibling quietly rounding out the family tree. A former judoka himself, he now works 9 to 5 as a government official. Long ago, he escorted his then-5-year-old brother to the dojo and unknowingly played a crucial role in shaping the future double Olympic champion's sports experience.
'I was tasked with providing emotional support because Hifumi couldn't go alone,' the 29-year-old Yuichiro said. 'I joined the same club but quit in sixth grade because judo wasn't for me. I don't regret it.'
There is no denying that Hifumi and Uta won the genetic lottery, but the contributions of Yuichiro can't be overlooked. Uta is aware that her gold medal in the women's 52 kilogram category at the Tokyo Olympics — won the same day Hifumi took gold in the men's 66 kg final — would not have been possible without him, and she credits her brothers for leading her to the tatami mat.
'I started judo only because the two of them were doing it before me. Seeing Hifumi deliver results makes me want to be stronger and keeps me going every day,' Uta, 24, told The Japan Times.
'I can't imagine it, but if I were an only child aiming for the Olympics, I don't think I'd have the drive to train as hard as I do now. Besides, I probably wouldn't have found judo.'
Sibling dynamics — whether it's rivalry, support, or a mix of both — can have a profound impact on an athlete's development and success. Yet, in comparison to the wealth of studies on athlete-parent and athlete-coach relationships, relatively little attention has been devoted to understanding the influence of siblings in athletic achievement.
Boxer Naoya Inoue (center) with his father, Shingo (left), and brother Takuma after defeating Kohei Kono to retain the WBO super flyweight title in December 2016. |
REUTERS
Shohei Ohtani (baseball), Rui Hachimura (basketball), Kaoru Mitoma (soccer), Naoya Inoue (boxing), Kei Nishikori (tennis) and Yuzuru Hanyu (figure skating) grew up with siblings, and all have reached elite levels of their respective sports.
It's not hard to guess why having siblings can be an athletic advantage.
For young athletes, siblings can act as training partners, coaches, teammates, motivators, role models and mentors. They learn lessons about sports and life by watching their siblings.
Research also suggests that having siblings means you're more likely to get involved in sports in the first place and spend more time engaged in a particular sport or physical activity.
Mikitoshi Isozaki, professor emeritus at Tokyo's International Christian University and an expert on sibling relationships, is a proponent of the birth order theory, which suggests that birth order affects your chances of making it as a professional athlete.
He points to a 2010 study by a pair of American psychologists that found that younger siblings engage in more unsupervised play and dangerous sports compared with older siblings, meaning they have more opportunity of making it to the top in these sports. Even in a less dangerous sport like baseball, the authors found that younger siblings were more likely to take bigger risks at the plate and on the base paths, and had more batting success overall.
'I used to take my brother to judo lessons so I guess you could say my contributions helped shape my siblings' judo careers," says Yuichiro Abe, older brother of Uta and Hifumi. |
Courtesy of the Abe family
'The 'little sibling effect' is backed by science,' Isozaki said.
'Younger children imitate their older siblings and learn at an accelerated rate. Having siblings makes you much more motivated and competitive. Sibling bonds also toughen you up and help build mental resilience. Parents are more relaxed and experienced with youngest siblings, so last-borns tend to have different personality traits, such as being out-of-the-box thinkers.'
Isozaki says it's no coincidence that so many sports heroes are the youngest sibling in their family, naming examples like current and former baseball stars Ohtani, Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Shigeo Nagashima, Japanese soccer icons Kazuyoshi Miura and Keisuke Honda, world champion figure skater Mao Asada and four-time tennis Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka.
'The list is endless,' he said.
Of course, there are plenty of professional athletes without siblings, and being an only child can offer certain advantages, particularly around financial resources and parental attention.
But considering that large families are becoming less common — 19.7% of Japanese families had one child in 2021 compared to 8.9% in 2002, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, which analyzed couples who had been married between 15 and 19 years — the proportion of elite athletes who are from multichild families makes it difficult to ignore the role of siblings in the development of sport expertise.
In fact, every single one of the 13 Japan-born players who made an MLB team's opening day 40-man roster in 2025 has at least one sibling. That includes Ohtani, who is the baby of the bunch in his family. If his brother had not played baseball before him, or his sister had not been his badminton playmate, Ohtani might not have developed the way he did.
There were four sets of siblings on Team Japan's roster at the most recent Summer Olympics in Paris — Hifumi and Uta Abe (judo), Tomokazu and Miwa Harimoto (table tennis), Yuki and Mayu Ishikawa (volleyball) and Evelyn and Stephanie Mawuli (basketball).
Sumo wrestlers Takanohana (left) and Wakanohana go head to head in Vancouver in June 1998. |
Reuters
Sometimes, families churn out not one but two (or more) sports stars. In addition to profiting from favorable genes and sibling interactions, many of these athletes get a leg up on the competition by training with highly driven parents.
'The father of the Abe siblings is a former swimmer who exposed his children to judo early and worked out with them. The father of the three Kameda brothers, Koki, Daiki and Tomoki, trained all his sons to become world champion boxers. The father of sumo yokozuna Wakanohana and Takanohana was also their oyakata (coach and stablemaster),' Isozaki said.
According to Isozaki, conflicts are more prevalent among same-sex siblings who play the same sport, particularly brothers. As an extreme example, the 'Waka-Taka brothers,' who are now 54 and 52, respectively, have been estranged from each other for over two decades after a sibling feud escalated into a national sumo soap opera in the late 1990s.
Fortunately, destructive sibling rivalry does not exist in the Abe household.
'I feel more motivation than pressure chasing another Olympic gold alongside my brother,' Uta said.
Meanwhile, Yuichiro said he has grown used to being called 'the other brother' — it's been going on for 10 years — and he's never felt inferior to his siblings. The three Abe siblings love each other. They're proud of one another. They serve one another. That's a win-win-win.
'I'm always consciously trying to be a good older brother,' Yuichiro said. 'I used to take my brother to judo lessons so I guess you could say my contributions helped shape my siblings' judo careers.'
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