insights from frontier Japan

In the Women’s Basketball Final on the last day of the Tokyo Olympic Games on August 8, Japan were beaten 75-90 by USA – who were aiming for their 7th consecutive title – to take the silver medal. Three athletes from Hokkaido, who were the driving force behind the team’s advancement into the final, shed tears as they smiled with joy at their achievement.

The Women’s Marathon was held on August 7, the third day of the Tokyo Olympic Games athletics Marathon and Race Walk events being held in Sapporo. Temperatures in Sapporo were extremely hot, with a maximum of 31.9 degrees recorded just before noon. This was the 18th consecutive day on which temperatures of at least 30 degrees were recorded. Despite the games’ Organising Committee hastily changing the start time to one hour earlier at 6 a.m., the race proved tough, with 15 of the 88 starters withdrawing before the end of the race.

At the 5:30 a.m. start on August 6, the temperature was already 25 degrees Celsius. It reached 30 degrees with a 79% humidity for the end of the walk in the 9:00 a.m. time slot. It was such a brutal environment, it was hard to feel any actual effect in shifting the venue to Sapporo to escape the intense heat of Tokyo.

The first of the Tokyo Olympic Games Marathon and Race Walk events to be held in Sapporo began on August 5 with the Men’s 20 km Race Walk. Despite the games’ Organising Committee calling, before the event – as part of measures to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus – for people to refrain from gathering to watch, spectators packed the roadsides along the course in downtown Sapporo.

A ‘nose grind’ is an original trick that uses the structure at the edge of the course. With a performance packed with tricks characteristic of the 12-year-old skater, Hiraki became Japan’s youngest ever Olympic medalist. “It was great to win silver medal by skating in my own style,” she smiled.

We talked to Yamagami Yuichiro (37) – managing director of Yamagami Mokko, a furniture maker in the town of Tsubetsu in the Okhotsk region of eastern Hokkaido – as he reflects on what was involved in the making of 5,400 wooden medal cases to be presented to athletes at the Tokyo Olympics.

July 24 marks the second match in the first round of Women's Olympic Football. Right before the match, all of the Japanese and Great Britain team members took a knee to protest racism.

The Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony on July 23 featured the "Olympic Rings" wooden sculpture crafted in ring shapes designed to represent the Olympic logo. This logo was made with wood from trees grown in the town of Engaru in the Eastern Hokkaido Okhotsk region. The wood used was forest thinning timber from trees that have grown from seeds given to Japan as a gift from countries that participated in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The choreography for Opening Ceremony scenes, including this scene and the scene representing the feelings inside the hearts of athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed by Central Hokkaido Otaru-raised dancer and choreographer Shintaro Hirahara.

The first round of women's football kicked off on July 21 at the Sapporo Dome. This is also the first event to be held in Hokkaido for the Summer Olympic Games. Unfortunately, COVID-19 spreading has not improved, and all matches will be held without spectators. That of course includes this first match, which ended in a 1-1 tie between the Japan women's national football team "Nadeshiko Japan" and Canada. Hokkaido fans are disappointed, as many wanted to see the matches at the venue.