TOKYO • Japanese swimming star Rikako Ikee has registered for a competition in Tokyo this month, her first since her shock leukaemia diagnosis last year, the local media reported yesterday .

The 20-year-old was a strong favourite for 100m butterfly gold at the Tokyo 2020 Games before revealing last year that she had blood cancer in February of last year.

She was discharged last December after being hospitalised for about 10 months and resumed training in March.

Public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News yesterday said she had signed up for a 50m freestyle race organised by the Tokyo Swimming Association on Aug 29.

A spokesman for the association declined to comment, saying only that registration for the event was still open.

Ikee has documented her fight against the disease online, thanking her fans for their support.

"It was a long and hard time," she said last year in a handwritten message posted on her Twitter account.

Ikee was also considered a contender for the Tokyo 2020 200m free, but her diagnosis forced her to switch her focus to competing in the Paris 2024 Games.

She has not said if she plans to rethink and compete in Tokyo next year, following the postponement of the Olympics until next July because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ikee served as the key figure at a subdued year-to-go ceremony for the delayed Games last month, urging disheartened athletes not to lose faith.

"Think of the coming year not simply as a one-year postponement, but a plus-one," she said. "To overcome adversity, what we need is hope, a flame of hope of glowing in the distance allows us to keep trying, to keep moving forward, no matter how hard it is."

Ikee, who became the first swimmer to win six gold medals at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, has not swam competitively since January last year.

According to the Japan Times, she plans to ramp up her preparations after the Aug 29 race, with an eye on the Japanese inter-collegiate championships in early October.

Last month, American rival and five-time Olympic swimming gold medallist Katie Ledecky told Kyodo News that Ikee's battle against cancer was an inspiration to her.

Revealing that they had kept in touch through Instagram, the 23-year-old said: "It was so hard to see her go through this over the past year... I can't wait to see what she can accomplish in the pool in the years to come."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS