Olympic and Paralympic Project Promotion Section早稲田大学 オリンピック・パラリンピック事業推進室

The Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics and Beyond: Creating a Lasting Legacy for Future Generations

The Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics and Beyond: Creating a Lasting Legacy for Future Generations

Message from the Vice President for Promotion of Sports and Olympic/Paralympic Projects

早稲田大学理事(スポーツ振興、オリンピック・パラリンピック事業推進担当) スポーツ科学学術院 教授 村岡功

Isao Muraoka (Professor, Faculty of Sport Sciences) Vice President for Promotion of Sports and Olympic/Paralympic Projects, Waseda University

We spoke to Professor Muraoka and discussed Waseda’s plans for PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2020, while taking a look back at the university’s history with the Olympics/Paralympics and sport in general.

Producing numerous Olympians, with a spirit of Bunbu Ryōdō

──Please tell us about Waseda University’s stance towards the Olympics and Paralympics.

Waseda University has produced numerous Olympic athletes, including Mikio Oda, Japan and Asia’s first Olympic gold medalist. If we go back to the root cause of this, we arrive at Shigenobu Okuma. Okuma had a great understanding of the importance of sport—he is quoted as saying that “[exercise] is essential for humans”—and ever since the university’s foundation he advocated a policy of bunbu ryōdō—stressing the importance of both academic and athletic activities.

Sport initiatives have always been an inherent part of the university: a yearly athletic festival in which both faculty members and students participate was started in 1883—the year after the university’s foundation—and the university’s athletics department was founded in 1897. This history and tradition of sport at Waseda acted as a magnet, drawing lots of highly talented athletes here, and our endeavors to develop and support these athletes has led to incredible results at the Olympics, which many of course consider the most prestigious of all sporting events.

If we look at leading universities worldwide, we see again that great importance is placed on sport and the Olympics. The most famous example of this is probably Harvard University in the United States. As of 2000, the university had produced 52 Olympic medalists—1.5 times the number our university had produced.

In order to increase its competitive power globally, Waseda must continue to drive forward Japan’s sporting world—both in terms of education and research—and use sport to further boost its international presence. Sport also has a big role to play within the university, such as by helping to cultivate school spirit and create a feeling of unity between students and alumni, and we will continue to place great importance on the Olympics and Paralympics, which serve as a symbol of this.

 

Defining the role of sport and pursuing university-wide initiatives to improve sporting performance

──From the 1920 Antwerp Olympics to last year’s Rio Olympics, the university has sent athletes to every Summer Olympics without exception. What do you think is the reason for this?

Waseda’s strength in sport has always been sustained by the individual efforts of each of the athletics departments and coaches. However, it was definitely the university’s strategic efforts to improve performance in competitive sport that allowed us to maintain this strength post-2000.

It was the decline in Waseda’s sporting prowess in the latter half of the 1990s that made us strengthen our competitive sport policies. Our performance in intercollegiate sporting events was lackluster—in part due to the progress made by other universities—and the number of athletes we sent to Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 dropped to single digits.

In 1999, sensing a crisis, the Committee for the Promotion of Sports, an advisory committee to Waseda’s President, was established. The report it made defined the significance of improving our performance in competitive sport, based on the two points I mentioned earlier: importance of sports education and research, and school unity. After that, the creation of university-wide sports-related plans and initiatives increased.

First of all, in 2000, the university appointed an Executive Director for Sports and Sports Promotion. In 2003, we opened the Athletic Center, which unifies all of the university’s different athletics departments. Then, in 2006, we launched various initiatives aimed at bringing first-class athletes to the university, such as launching the “top athlete” entrance exam at the School of Sport Sciences.

For promising students with a chance to be able to compete in the Olympics, we introduced measures to grant scholarships. This bore fruit, and our results at sporting events and the Olympics recovered—Waseda regained its sporting prowess.

──Is there anything that Waseda University considers particularly important when it comes to improving competitive sport performance?

Waseda’s sporting spirit is one of bunbu ryōdō—placing importance on both academic and athletic activities. To us, this means that, as well as competitive prowess, importance must also be placed on personal development. This is what led us to establish the Waseda Athlete Proclamation code of conduct in 2008, and to start the Waseda Athlete Program (WAP)—which applies to the members of all our athletics departments—in 2014.

WAP is based around two key principles: personal development and study support. The study support program stipulates a set amount of credits that should be acquired each semester, and helps our students—including Olympic athletes—to graduate in four years, as a general rule.

Maximizing the value of sport at Waseda, and bringing joy and excitement to people

──Please tell us about the initiatives Waseda is implementing in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020.

In preparation for 2020, on October 1st of this year we launched the Olympic and Paralympic Project Promotion Committee within the university. We plan to run various projects, based around two main objectives: using the Tokyo Olympics as an opportunity to boost Waseda University’s international presence, and as an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy for future generations.

We will of course also be working to develop our athletes, and we hope to send as many students and alumni to the Olympics as possible. One issue that relates to this is improving our development of Paralympic athletes. As of now, I cannot really say that we have a sufficient environment to do so most effectively, both in terms of equipment and in terms of personnel.

We plan to improve handicapped accessibility and increase our specialized coaches, and do our utmost to produce more Paralympians than we currently do.

──Finally, please tell us about Waseda’s future aspirations.

In terms of our aims as part of Waseda Vision 150—to make international contributions and develop global leaders—the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics should prove extremely important. We will use this valuable opportunity to create a legacy that can be passed on to future generations.

One of the key strategies of Waseda Vision 150, “Fostering pride as Waseda people in the world,” requires contributions to sport. In order to accomplish this, we hope to use the large stage that the Olympics and Paralympics offer in order to maximize the value of sport at Waseda, and to bring feelings of joy and excitement to not only students and alumni but also faculty members and parents.


Details of Olympic and Paralympic Project Promotion Committee activities

Goals
  • Use the Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics as an opportunity to boost Waseda University’s international presence
  • Use the Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics to leave a lasting legacy for future generations
Specific Projects
  • Academic/Cultural Exchange
  • Support for Waseda and non-Waseda athletes (improving the university’s competitive prowess and assisting with sport in developing countries)
  • Providing university athletic facilities to teams from overseas, etc.
  • Invigoration of various volunteer activities
  • Implementing related training/education
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