Structural Reform in the World of Sports | Shohei Onishi (Dean, Graduate School of Health Management)
2006.10.26
Since my student days, I have enjoyed winter sports, especially skiing and skating. However, these were purely for recreation, and naturally, I never dreamed when I was young that I would participate as a medical doctor in the Olympics, a festival for top athletes.
I participated as a headquarters doctor for the Japanese national team in two consecutive Olympic Games, the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and the 2006 Turin Olympics, but as you all know, the results were a crushing defeat. This is a very sad term to use when I think of the athletes who competed alongside us, but each sports federation solemnly accepted the facts as they were.
Why was it such a crushing defeat? As a member of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) Medical Sciences Support Division and as a director and head of the Information and Medical Sciences Department of the Ski Association of Japan, I am deeply involved with the training and development sites within these two major organizations. In 2002, the Japanese Olympic Committee launched the Gold Plan, a project to double the number of medals. This Gold Plan was the result of the JOC's responsibility to establish comprehensive measures for improving Japan's international competitiveness, stemming from the objectives of the "Sports Promotion Plan" formulated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on September 13, 2000.
This amounts to a structural reform of sports. This plan is primarily built on two pillars: the "Enhancement Program" and the "Environmental Improvement Program." The Enhancement Program is divided into the "Athlete Program," which focuses on intensive training projects for competitors; the "National Staff Program" and "National Coach Academy" for instructors; and the "Athlete Development Program," with the goal of creating development and enhancement programs for both athletes and coaches. Furthermore, the Environmental Improvement Program is a plan to establish the National Training Center as a hub for sports enhancement. Thanks to the excellent results at the Athens Olympics, coupled with a decisive word from former Prime Minister Koizumi, the project gained momentum and is now on track to be completed by the year of the Beijing Olympics.
While structural reforms for the enhancement and development of athletes by the Japanese Olympic Committee are being called for and implemented, I would like to inform you all that winter sports federations like the Ski Association of Japan and the Japan Skating Federation, following the crushing defeat at the Turin Olympics, must push forward with enhancement efforts under intense pressure. To achieve this, they are in a situation where they must reform their long-standing structures into organizations built for winning—organizations that can act effectively and achieve their action plans.
(Date of publication: 2006/10/26)