| Etsuko Inada | |
| Birth Date: | 8 February 1924 |
| Birth Place: | Osaka, Japan |
| Death Place: | Chiba, Chiba, Japan |
| Beganskating: | 1932 |
| Retired: | 1952 |
| Native Name: | 稲田 悦子 |
was a Japanese figure skater who mostly competed in singles. She was the first female athlete to represent Japan at the Winter Olympics.Inada began skating at eight years old. She was a seven-time Japanese national champion and represented Japan at the 1936 Winter Olympics at the age of 12. While competing there, she wore a costume given to her by the Japanese Women's Association of Berlin.[1]
After the war, she married and had a son. She returned to competitive skating and won a competition shortly before the planned 1949 Japanese national championships, but the national championships were cancelled due to the weather becoming too warm.[2] Her last competition was the 1951 World Figure Skating Championships.
Later in her life, she opened a store in Aoyama, Tokyo and coached at a rink in front of the Prince Chichibu Memorial Sports Museum, which holds her costume from the Olympics in its collection.[3] [4] Her students included Olympic skaters Miwa Fukuhara, Junko Hiramatsu, and Haruko Okamoto. She died in 2003 from stomach cancer.[5]
| International | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event | 1933–34 | 1934–35 | 1935–36 | 1936–37 | 1937–38 | 1938–39 | 1939–40 | 1940–41 | 1950–51 | |||||||
| align=left | 10th | |||||||||||||||
| align=left | 10th | 21st | ||||||||||||||
| align=left | 9th | |||||||||||||||
| National | ||||||||||||||||
| align=left | bgcolor=gold | 1st | bgcolor=gold | 1st | bgcolor=gold | 1st | bgcolor=gold | 1st | bgcolor=gold | 1st | 1st | bgcolor=gold | 1st | |||
| align=left | bgcolor=gold | 1st |