Takako Shirai (volleyball)


Takako Shirai is a Japanese former volleyball player of Korean ancestry. She is a two-time Olympian who was a member of the Japanese women's national volleyball team that won the gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Shirai also helped Japan win the silver medal at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. She was an outside hitter.
Shirai became a key player in the rise of the Japanese women in the 1970s. She helped the Japanese women secure a gold medal at the 1974 FIVB World Championship in Mexico. She was also key in Japan's gold medal win at the
1977 FIVB World Cup in Japan.
In 2000, Shirai became an inductee of the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

National team