Cultural activities with athletes
Municipalities throughout Japan were making various preparations to host events in association with the Games until the spread of coronavirus forced the authorities to decide on postponing the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020 until 2021.
Now such plans are being reorganised for next year and Okayama City is an example of such projects, which, although far from Tokyo, succeeded in attracting many national teams to base their training camps locally, and is trying to retain a legacy from the games.
Okayama City is in western Japan, has a Shinkansen (bullet train) station as well as an airport, and is a relatively convenient place to get to from Tokyo in three and a half hours by train and one and a half hours by air.
The area is famous for its mild climate with few earthquakes and little rain. Also, there are fully equipped sports facilities such as Okayama Prefectural Multipurpose Grounds, with a gymnasium and athletics stadium, and Okayama City Comprehensive Cultural Gymnasium. The International Pacific University (IPU) which is a well-established institution with facilities and reputation for teaching, and the City is famous for its women’s volleyball team, the Okayama Seagulls who compete in the top leagues in Japan, provide a favorable environment for sports.
Okayama City Government has been actively conducting training camp promotion projects in collaboration with Okayama Prefecture to promote social, economic, and cultural exchanges between participating countries and Japan’s regions with activities based at the Olympic camp in the City.
A distinctive feature of Okayama City’s training camp project is that local sports groups (such as the Okayama Volleyball Association) host Olympic teams from overseas.
Although many local councils are engaged in camp promotion projects, outsourcing to a travel agency is a standard feature, especially in larger local authorities. However, Okayama City gives a subsidy to local sports organisations, letting them run the camp. The City believes there is little post-event benefit for an area by entrusting these projects to the leading national travel agencies outside the prefecture, and the organisers of the local events aimed to promote activities that would be valued in the area and leave a legacy for locals.
Despite taking time and effort to prepare a camp, this strategy not only helps local athletes within the City to interact closely with top athletes from overseas, helping them to improve their competitiveness, but also helps the local community benefit from the Olympic Games being in Japan. Expectations are that spending time with the competitors will increase local athletes’ motivation and those sporting connections will continue after the Games.
Also, during the build-up to the Games, Okayama City will offer local community activities, such as exchanges with children from local elementary schools. These include sports clubs, calligraphy classes with students in high school calligraphy clubs as well as excursions organised by the Okayama Sports Promotion Organisation so the athletes who come to the camp can enjoy Okayama local culture.
Nineteen training camps were set up by June 2020, hosting badminton, women’s wrestling, women’s volleyball national teams from Bulgaria which has twinning links with Okayama, the Spanish national women’s judo and the Dominican Republic national women’s volleyball teams.
Judo and wrestling teams practice at International Pacific University, whose athletes compete in international competitions and are known for their excellent leading competitors. At the same time, women’s volleyball players planned to cooperate with the top Japanese league team Okayama Seagulls. Okayama athletes who host training can experience fighting, and practice methods that differ from Japanese styles believed to be a significant boost to sporting skills.
In the Paralympic Games, Cambodian wheelchair track and field representatives and Taiwanese Paralympic powerlifting athletes will partner with local camp hosts (who have sister city links with municipalities in Taiwan). Paralympic athletes from Cambodia were able to train and practice with Japanese wheelchair legend Hitoshi Matsunaga as well as Tomoki Sato, who won the silver medal at the Rio de Janeiro Games.
While hosting the Paralympic powerlifting athletes, students at the Okayama Technical High School received financial support from the Rotary Club to design and create a bench press specifically for Paralympic powerlifting, for use in general training and for future commercial manufacturing. In years to come, it will be possible to practice using this bench press table, just one result of hosting training camps, along with others to improve the environment for training in Okayama.
Due to the spread of coronavirus, there is a suspension of accepting national teams, and local activities are on hold. However, Okayama will continue to host the already confirmed camps, including the advance training camps of the Games to be held in 2021. The City hopes teams and athletes hosted in Okayama will participate in the Olympics, and that this valuable experience will leave a legacy for the region after the Games.
Okayama City is now looking for national teams and representatives considering locations to hold pre-camps for the Games. The City also provides subsidies to support the hosting of groups, and for those who would like to consider basing training camps in Okayama City, please contact sportsyuchi@city.okayama.lg.jp.
