Japanese Government Policies in Education, Science, Sports and Culture 2000[Trends in Educational Reform Section 2 Q16 2]

(1) The goal is to positively promote the development and reinforcement of athletes capable of competing at major events, seeing that the performance of the nation's top-level athletes at international competitions, notably the Olympic Games, fills the hearts and minds of the nation with a vision and with great emotional excitement and thus contributes to the development of a happy and vigorous society. (2) Given, in particular, that Japan's Olympic medal award rate at the 1996 Olympic Games dropped to 1.7%, the goal is to double this medal award rate, in other words, raise it to 3.5%, by promoting in a general and planned manner a range of measures designed to develop and reinforce Japan's top-level athletes.

In order to work toward improving international competitiveness in Japan, we must systematically and deliberately implement training for athletes possessing superior flair in line with their individual qualities and the characteristics of progress in their respective age brackets. To this end, through implementing the most appropriate training tailored to individual athletes, we will address the building of optimal training programs whose objective is to cultivate athletes that are capable of eventually playing an active role at the world level by eliciting their qualities and capabilities to the utmost. More specifically, in 2005 we will aim to have produced an athlete development program setting forth ideas on training and training content for the development of top-level athletes by athletic associations, and maintain a structure in which effective training can take place based on this program.

Furthermore, we are also devoted to addressing issues such as the development of full-fledged training centers on the national level and fostering and securing trainers in order to effectively implement training through the optimal training programs.

Moreover, in order to develop athletes through scientific training methods using the research results of sports medicine and science, we will improve our sports medicine and science research structures through such means as working toward enhancing the Japan Institute of Sports Science, on which improvements are presently being advanced.


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