Expanding the possibilities of sport

I wish you a Happy New Year!

2023 was a year marked by Japanese athletes succeeding not only in sports that Japan has traditionally excelled in, but across a wide range of sports and sporting events. 2023 began with Japan winning the World Baseball Classic, followed by Japanese athletes flourishing in other sports including basketball, handball, track and field, and at the Asian Championship and the Para Championships. It was truly a year in which our nation was able to enjoy watching athletes playing at the highest level in the world across many sports.

The younger generation has also made great strides. This is partly due to proactive learning fostered through school and social education, a policy promoted by the Ministry of Education, or MEXT, through the initiatives of active learning and pressure-free education known as “yutori kyoiku.” These have helped foster athletes’ ambition to continue striving to realize and execute one’s potential.

This summer, the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympic Games will be held. We look forward to the success of all athletes participating. The Japan Sports Agency, of the JSA, will promote measures to improve Japan’s international-competitiveness, and support athletes to be able to give their best performance by utilizing sports medicine and science, and building a system to support athletes right up to the Games.

In addition, the knowledge on sports medicine and science obtained through such efforts will be returned to society by advancing measures to help people maintain and improve their health and to implement effective exercise and sport. Through promoting exercise and sport for a specific purpose, JSA aims to improve people’s life performance so that everyone regardless of their age, gender, or disability, can display their full potential at every life stage. To this end, JSA will work to spread public awareness by also utilizing the self-check video I designed and personally show how to check on your body.

JSA will also advance reforming school sport clubs so that our children will be able participate in a variety of sport activities in a sustainable way. As we enter the second year of the reform period, JSA will enhance measures to support demonstration projects carried out in regional communities to disseminate good practices. JSA will also work to strengthen collaborations between various stakeholders including sport organizations and private businesses.

The downsizing of schools due to low birthrates is making it increasingly difficult for school clubs to secure opportunities for children to play sport. There are an increasing number of cases where school clubs do not have enough members to form a team, or children are unable to play the sport of their choice. Playing various sports during one’s school days helps foster a child’s potential and may lead to expanding their future options.

We are no longer living in an era where sport activities are limited to school life. Developing professional sport will revitalize regional communities, and health consciousness will bolster the fitness industry. The first thing we must do is to improve the sport environment for children. Through these reforms, we must free sport from the boundaries of the school to create an environment where people can continue enjoying sport throughout their lives.

Sport has a huge potential to revive regional communities and the economy. JSA will support regional communities promoting sports tourism (including martial arts), disseminate information on good practices and awards given to municipalities and students on their ideas for building healthy communities through sport, advance the reform of stadium arenas by having the central and local governments and private organizations work together to rebuild stadium arenas to serve as base for regional revitalization. Moreover, JSA will promote various sports open innovation businesses in regional communities across Japan by supporting the creation of new business models that integrate resources of the sporting world with the knowhow of private companies.

We must also improve sports integrity to disseminate these values of sport to society. Sport organizations must work to strengthen governance and thorough compliance based on governance codes and other rules. We must also work to eradicate issues rooted in sport including violence and harassment and enhance anti-doping activities such as developing detection methods that correspond to sophisticated sports doping.

With the diversification of our work and lifestyles, people are finding new ways to enjoy sport. Given any era, sport has the power to uplift and enrich our souls and lives. The sporting world must come together to flexibly correspond to the changing times. By further spreading the possibility of sport, JSA strives to realize a sporting world that inspires the nation.

JSA Commissioner
MUROFUSHI Koji