"I nearly lost you there," growled brooding Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan of the alternative rock band Screaming Trees in 1992, a year when Seattle hosted the grunge Olympics. Then, as now in the actual Olympic Olympics, the operative adverb is "nearly." In that eventful summer of 1992, when table tennis was for the first time returning as an established Olympic sport, a boy named Jun Mizutani turned three years old in his hometown of Itawa, Japan. In 2020, a girl named Mima Ito would be born in the same city. Both would grow up to be national champions and Olympic medalists in table tennis, winning two bronzes and a silver between them in Rio 2016. Now, the two represent not only their nation's hopes but the pride of Itawa in mixed doubles, making its Olympic debut on their home soil. "Mizutani has been like a big brother to me since we were young, and someone whom I respect and admire," said Ito. "I'm really happy to be able to compete in the mixed doubles with him." The hometown heroes entered the event seeded second behind defending mixed doubles world champions Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen of China. Ito and Mizutani cruised past Austria's Sofia Polcanova and Stefan Fegerel, 4-1, in the round of 16. Then, in the quarterfinals, they faced a test for the ages. Facing Germany's Petrissa Solja and Patrick Franziska, the Japanese duo won the first game but then quickly fell behind, 2-1. After leveling the match at two, they again saw their German counterparts pull ahead, 3-2. Again, Team Itawa leveled the match, forcing the deciding seventh game. With a spot in the semifinals on the line, Itawa's finest stumbled out of the gate, falling behind 9-2 in the only game that mattered. Facing a seemingly insurmountable deficit, they simply went to work chipping away at the German lead. Incredibly, they staved off seven match points before finally converting their own, 16-14. "It was an incredibly tense match, even though there was no medal riding on it," said Mizutani. "We simply refused to give up and that is what has led us to this victory." Ito, for her part, was quick to credit her partner. "I really feel we have got this win because of Mizutani," she said. "He has such determination and kept giving me words and looks of encouragement. I'm a winner because I have been paired with him." In the semis, they stayed hot, defeating Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei, 4-1. In the other, semi, top seeds Xu and Liu blanked Yuan Jia Nan and Emmanuel Lebesson of France to reach the final. "Now we are into the stage where medals are at stake," said Mizutani, owner of Olympic silver and bronze. "We have worked really hard and are going for the gold medal so obviously we want to win the next match." As the Trees screamed, "I nearly lost you there." While Team Itawa suffered a similar scare, they can now savor the conclusion of the couplet: "And it's taken us somewhere."

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