Sports on the climb in Japan

OF THE five ‘new’ sports approved for Tokyo 2020, the most fascinating will be sport climbing.

The event will involve bouldering, lead climbing and speed climbing, with a total of 40 athletes taking part. It could be quite a spectacle.

As the Tokyo 2020 website explains: “Speed climbing pits two climbers against each other, both climbing a fixed route on a 15-metre wall.

“In bouldering, climbers scale a number of fixed routes on a 4m wall in a specified time. In lead climbing, athletes attempt to climb as high as possible on a wall measuring over 15m in height within a fixed time.

“At the Games, each climber will compete in all three disciplines, with the final rankings being determined by the combined results.”

Baseball/softball, last at Beijing in 2008, has been reinstated. Karate, skateboarding and surfing will debut. government and companies are becoming more aggressive in their approach to sport.

“At the moment their target is the Olympics so, hopefully, after the Olympics their passion still remains for sport, and J- League is one of those sports that they still want to invest in.”

The first wave of ticket sales in Japan, which took the form of a lottery, resulted in record sales of 3.22m so far. There will even be robots involved – some to help disabled people around the stadia, some to help with loading, some acting as greeters, some giving virtual tours. Face-recognition technology will be used and there will be electric buggies to transport athletes and staff.

So far, though, the countdown to the Olympics is understated. There is just as much publicity for the Rugby World Cup, understandably, as that starts in September.

There is building work everywhere, especially near the waterfront, where a new Olympic Village is being built that will hold 17,000 athletes and guests. At Tokyo 2020, there will be 339 medal events and 33 sports, including karate, skateboarding, sports climbing and surfing, which will figure for the first time. Of the 43 venues that will be used across the city, 25 already exist, with some being renovated. There will be eight new venues, five already completed.

Hundreds of housands are expected to descend on the city during the month of the Olympics – around 920,000 per day – which means a 10 per cent rise in usage of the already crammed trains, and a 20 per cent increase in express highway usage.

Extra trains will be put on but many firms are putting into place flexible working plans to try to avoid Tokyo’s infamous rush-hour crushes. The Games are being staged in two zones – the Heritage Zone, which stretches outside the city as far as the Musashinonomori Cycling Park and the Kokugikan Arena, which will hold the boxing, and the Tokyo Bay Zone.

The new national stadium will have a capacity of 60,102 and it will be completed in November; its first event is set to be football, with the final of the Emperor’s Cup on New Year’s Day. The venue will be the stage for the opening and closing ceremonies, along with track and field.

Tokyo is aready a busy city. Now it is steeling itself to become even busier.

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