Every day, Yuki Nagasato wakes up at 6:30 a.m. and heads to the neighborhood coffee shop. It¡¯s her favorite place, she says, not too big, not too small ¡ª just right to pass a couple of hours reading and writing down her thoughts. Almost a year has passed since she moved to Chicago, so by now most of the staff know her name and order. And, since the morning she arrived with a camera crew from NHK¡¯s ¡°Gutto! Sports¡± program in tow, they also have an idea of her caliber.

Nagasato hails from Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, a Tokyo bedroom community that couldn¡¯t be further in size and feel from the nation¡¯s capital ¡ª let alone America¡¯s Windy City. Mountains and rivers surround the neighborhood where she grew up and where her parents still live; she shared her elementary school with just 70 students ¡ª ¡°So small!¡± she says.

When quite young, Nagasato gravitated toward piano and the soroban (Japanese abacus), which she took to quickly. On the abacus, especially, she says, ¡°I was fast!¡± But by junior high, these pursuits ¡ª and playtime as she knew it ¡ª were over. She had given her life over to sports.