Tokyo sports

sports

In Japan a wide variety of sports is practiced. Traditional martial arts such as judo and kendo enjoy great popularity in the same way as sports imported from abroad, such as football and baseball. Summer is the time when many Japanese travel to the coast to practice surfing and scuba diving, while skiing and snowboarding are very popular sports during winter.






Girl practicing karate-do, a martial art in which physical and mental strength counts



MAJORITY SPORTS


Baseball is one of the most popular sports show in Japan. There are twelve professional teams, six in the Central League and six in the Pacific League. The teams of each league play around 140 games each during the season, at the end of which the two winners of their respective leagues face each other in the Japan Series.


Non-professional baseball also enjoys great popularity and many schoolchildren practice this sport at local Little Leagues or baseball school teams. The National High School Baseball Championship, which is held twice a year, is decided between schools that have had to overcome tough qualifying rounds in order to represent their prefectures.

Since the Japanese professional football league itself, the J. League, was founded in 1993, football has more and more followers. The fact that Japan and the Republic of Korea had jointly held the 2002 FIFA World Championship has greatly contributed to increasing football's popularity. At the FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010, Japan reached the knockout stage. Many Japanese players have joined foreign teams and play in major European leagues. Japan also has a women's soccer league in which most of the players are not professionals. In 2011, the Japanese women's national team won the FIFA Women's World Cup held in Germany, and at the 2012 London Olympics the team won the silver medal.


MARTIAL ARTS

Traditional martial arts, such as judo, kendo, karate and aikido, remain important thanks to the dedication of their practitioners.

In judo, which literally means "the gentle path", the key to overcoming the opposite lies in taking advantage of your own strength. At present, it enjoys great popularity throughout the world and has firmly established itself as an official Olympic sport since its first inclusion in the 1964 Olympic Games. Following in the footsteps of judo, kendo (Japanese fencing) has also managed to attract many fans abroad in recent years. Kendo opponents wear protective suits as armor and use bamboo swords to attack and defend themselves. Karate was introduced in Japan from China through the Kingdom of the Ryukyu (the current Okinawa). Karate opponents do not wear any protection and fight using only their hands and feet.

SUMO

Sumo, Japan's national sport, has a history that spans more than 1500 years. Since it used to be celebrated as a form of thanksgiving for the harvests and other religious ceremonies, many rituals are still performed in the sumo. The rikishi (sumo wrestlers), who wear their hair in the style of the ancient warriors, only wear a special silk belt and fight only with bare hands. Almost all weigh between 100 and 200 kilos (between 220 and 440 pounds). They fight in a dohyo (ring) of 4.5 meters in diameter (14.8 feet in diameter) until one of the two leaves the ring or touches the ground with any part of his body other than the soles of the feet. Although the rules are simple, the technique is not, and there are more than eighty ways to win. Professional sumo tournaments are held six times a year and last fifteen days each. The sumo has drawn attention outside of Japan thanks to the fact that exhibition tournaments have been organized in several countries and partly also to the success obtained by some foreign fighters.

THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Non-professional sport also makes its way in Japan, which always presents a strong team in the Olympic Games. Some 338 Japanese athletes competed in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and 113 participated in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Japan has hosted the Olympics three times: The 1964 Summer Games were held in Tokyo - the first Olympiad held in Asia - while the Winter Games were held first in Sapporo in 1972 and then in Nagano in 1998. And Japan has been designated as the host country for the fourth time to host the 2020 Summer Olympics to be held in Tokyo

POPULAR SPORTS BETWEEN CHILDREN


Japanese children practice various sports in their school clubs or near where they live. Football and baseball are two of the most popular sports among boys, while girls often practice sports such as bowling and badminton. Swimming is a sport widely practiced by both sexes.

Children practicing judo, Olympic sport since the Tokyo games of 1964 (Kodokan)

Children practicing kendo, Japanese martial art in which bamboo sticks are used (Tokyo Metropolitan Government)