When Masanori Miyajima first came to Europe in the late ‘90s as a soigneur, he could only speak limited English and knew nothing about the sport of cycling.
He grew up in a city just outside of Tokyo and, like many young Japanese boys, baseball was his sport of choice. He’d hoped that one day he might be able to play professionally, but so did many others. Instead, he decided to go to a school to learn massage.
Miyajima had just trained as a masseur and was considering his next steps when a school friend, who had been racing in Belgium, asked him if he’d be interested in being his personal soigneur. Not put off by the language barrier or the leap into the unknown, “Masa” – as he is known to everyone – decided to pack his bags and head to Europe.
“When I got my diploma for acupuncture and massage, I started thinking about what I would do and my friend said to me, “Masa, if you want you can come to Belgium with me, I can pay for everything, like ticket, food, and apartment.” He couldn’t pay me a big salary, but just a small personal amount,” Miyajima says.
“I said yes, but when I was young, I was not thinking too much. I arrived in Belgium in 1998. I didn’t have any idea who Eddy Merckx was or about Paris-Roubaix. I knew nothing about Belgium, I didn’t know which way was Ghent or Brussels. I didn’t have the internet or a Garmin, just a paper map. I could only speak a bit of English.”
With the plethora of internet messaging and video call apps, contacting home while you’re travelling the world is a relatively easy task. Translating foreign languages into your own can also be done by the press of a few buttons as well.
However, when Miyajima came to Europe, Wi-Fi had not long been invented, and it would be a few more years before it was commonly available. Calling over a landline would have been exorbitantly expensive, too, so Miyajima had to resort to slower technology to keep in touch.
“In the end, I think it was ok, but back then, it was a little bit challenging. My friend helped me a lot and I love communicating with people, so I eventually made more friends. But I had no internet so if I needed to communicate with home, I had to send a fax to Japan,” he says.
“I didn’t have a telephone either so I couldn’t just call Japan to say hello. I also wrote letters and sent photos, but it would take two or three weeks to get there. Now we have the internet, and it is easy to make a translation but then it wasn’t so easy. It meant that many Japanese riders wouldn’t make it because of the language. But I had a go.”
Returning to Japan
Miyajima’s European adventure only lasted a year before he headed back to Japan. He was interested in continuing as a soigneur, but he wanted to take the time to improve his language skills and gain some more experience.
When back in Japan, he started operating out of a massage room in a fitness centre. He was primarily working with members of the public, but riders would come in from time to time to get a treatment.
He was also able to occasionally dip into the world of cycling by freelancing as a soigneur with a Japanese team. The work was sporadic, but he enjoyed when he had the opportunity to get involved in the sport again.
“In Japan, there are not as many races as there are in Europe and the teams cannot afford to pay you all year. It was daily work. If there’s a one-week race like the Tour of Japan then they would ask me to help, but if it’s just a one-day race then they don’t need a soigneur, and they can’t pay. There weren’t so many races, but I could keep in touch with cycling when I was in Japan,” Miyajima explained.
Incidentally, there was a GreenEDGE Cycling connection at the team with General Manager Brent Copeland having worked with them for a time. Copeland had left the squad by the time Miyajima joined, but their paths would cross before too long.
Miyajima made his return to European cycling in 2008, when his Japanese team merged with an Italian team. Since then, he’s worked with some of the biggest teams in the peloton and with cycling’s biggest starts. Over 20 years after that first big trip, life on the road with a cycling team has become his normality.
“I can’t explain it, but for me being at a race is like normal life. We have the same ups and downs. Sometimes you get a win, but it’s not always good results but you keep going,” he explains. “I like having the daily programme at races and the teamwork.”
A life-changing moment
When Miyajima joined GreenEDGE Cycling in 2021, he didn’t know just how intwined his life would become with the team.
During his second season with the Aussie squad, he was up early and getting ready for that year’s opening stage of the Tour de France in Copenhagen when he started feeling a bit off. He didn’t think too much of it, but his colleagues were concerned and sprung into action.
“I was cleaning the race car, and in my chest it felt strange. I spoke with one of our soigneurs, Marco Gobbi, and I told him I just needed a break. He said no problem, but it is better you tell our doctor,” Miyajima explains. “He called the doctor, Matteo Beltemacchi, and told him that I was having a problem with my chest. He checked me over, my blood pressure and other things, and said to me, ‘Masa, you need to go to the hospital.’”
Dr Beltemacchi didn’t waste any time and took a team car and drove Miyajima straight to the nearest hospital, which was fortunately only a few kilometres away.
“In the moment, I thought I was ok, and I wanted to continue the Tour de France. But he said no, I needed to be checked. Beltemacchi is a heart specialist, so I was really lucky. The doctor in the hospital found something and he said it was impossible to continue the Tour de France, and I had to stay.”
Miyajima would watch the rest of the Tour de France, every stage from start to finish, from a hospital bed in Denmark. During that time, he was moved to a bigger hospital closer to the centre of Copenhagen. They tried to fit a stent into his artery, but it was impossible as the artery was blocked, and he needed a bypass surgery.
He’d already been in the hospital for a month by this time and the Tour de France had finished. Miyajima had hoped he could return to Japan to get the surgery and make his recovery, but it was decided it was too risky, and the team arranged for the surgery to take place in Europe.
“I asked the doctor if it was possible to go back to Japan to do the surgery there, but they said no because it would be super dangerous. If something happened when I was flying then I could die,” he says. “In the end, they decided to do the surgery in Germany, so I moved to North Germany.”
When in Germany, he was able to start doing some gentle cycling and walking to aid his recovery. After nearly three months in hospital, he was finally able to head home to Japan – by this time, the Vuelta a España had also finished.
He still needed to rest and recuperate, so it would be another few months before he could start working again. Miyajima made his return to the road in February 2023, and he’s always a welcome and smiling face at any race he’s working at.
“I am grateful to the team, this is very important for me to say. The team covered everything that I needed,” says Miyajima. “To Brent, all I can say is thank you. At the Vuelta in 2024, I saw our boss Gerry Ryan and I was crying because I wanted to say thank you because he takes care of all the staff and riders. The next morning, I told him sorry for crying. I told him thank you for everything, for taking care of my life, and for my family. I have so much respect for the team, I love this team.”
