Tokyo 2020

The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games came to an end. In the closing ceremony, Tokyo held an eight-minute presentation and it was really nice. 

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emerge from a large green pipe with Nintendo character Mario costume. Media said it was the best part of the whole ceremony. I think it was really nice and funny. Tokyo 2020 would be a wonderful event. 

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Yoshida Lost Gold

The BBC reported that American Helen Maroulis caused one of the biggest upsets in women's wrestling as she became the first American to win Olympic gold in the sport. She best Japan's three times Olympic champion Saori Yoshida in the -53kg final in Rio Olympics. 

Yoshida might get a lot of of pressure from everywhere. In the second period of the match, Yoshida lost four points and couldn't reverse the points. She apologized to audience for her lost. 

She has been doing really well since 2004 in Athens Olympic Games. She had no need to apologize. 

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Men's Table Tennis Gets Silver

Japan faced China at the 2016 Rio Olympics men's table tennis team final. Japanese players performed well, but they couldn't beat China this time. 

At the second match, Japan's Jun Mizutani defeated the World No. 2 Xu Xin for the first time. That was a bright side of the match. I believe Japan will defeat China in the near future. 

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Kei Goes to Semis

Japanese tennis player Kei Nishikori won over France’s Gael Monfils at the Rio Olympics. He was almost lost the game. He survived from three match points, a 3-6 tiebreake. 

Nishikori will face the defending champion Andy Murray in Saturday’s semifinal. Kei had a win-loss record of only a win and seven losses against Andy. I believe Kei will win this time and will go to the final. He was born in my city, so we are waiting for Kei to bring an Olympic medal to our city. 

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Uchimura Wins All-Around

Kohei Uchimura won his second Olympic men’s gymnastics individual all-around title by only 0.099 points to Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev. He's never lost all-around at world championships and Olympics since 2009. 

Uchimura looked very tired and damaged after finished the high bar. He is two times Olympic and six time world championships champion. That's amazing. He is the best gymnast for sure. 

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Ai-chan

Ai Fukuhara couldn't go into the final of Rio 2016 table tennis taurnament. She fight against London gold medalist Li Xiaoxia and lost the game. She will play the next match for the bronze medal. 

She has lead Japanese table tennis players for the long time. I hope she get the third place.  

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Japan Gets a Gold

Japan men’s Olympic team won all-around gymnastic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro. I couldn't watch their performances on time, but I had the news on a tweet. Later, I watched Japan's performances on TV and they were perfect! I was really moved by these performances. 

I think they were under a lot of pressure because they couldn't get gold medal both Beijing and London. The last was floor exercise. The first player was Kenzo Shirai, 19. He performed really well and the performance made Kato and Uchimura relaxed. 

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Rio 2016

Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games have started. The first Japan's game was football against Nigeria. Unfortunately, Japan lost the first game even Nigeria had transport troubles. 

I look forward to watch table tennis, gymnastics and tennis. I'm worried about Kei Nishikori's physical conditions, but he will reach some kind of medal in this Olympics.   

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Security in Rio

Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games will start soon, but there are lots of security problems there. Due to the worsening of economic conditions in Brazil, street crimes happen so frequently. And terrorist attacks are concernd, but Brazilian authorities are not familia with handling terrorist attacks. 

Only I can do for Olympic athletes is play for them. I hope I can watch their performances in good conditions. 

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Russian Athlete Banned for Olympics

Russian track and field athletes won't participate Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this year. The games will start next month. 

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) claimed that Russian authority lead doping to Russian athletes. They even swapped positive urine samples for clean ones to pass doping tests. 

I'm really sorry for the athletes. I don't think that most of them can reject doping becaus of pressure from the government. Russian authorities should revival the facts to the world. 

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Japan Women's Volleyball Team Goes to Rio

The women's volleyball qualification for 2016 Olympics has been held in Japan. Japan lost tonight's game against Italy with a 2-3, but they has advanced to the Rio Games on set differential. If they lost the game with a 0-3 or a 1-3, they couldn't reach the big event today. 

I'm reall glad because the head coach, Manabe, was my classmate when we were university students. Sadly, I never talked with him, though. 

Japan women's team won the bronze medal at 2012 London games. I hope they will get the gold medal this year. 

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Autograph of Olympic Player

I went to new Matsue City Gymnasium to see my friends. A local table tennis tournament was held there. I had to work a little, so I couldn't join the games. 

I got there before noon and I found a Japanese female table tennis player, Kasumi Ishikawa, seating in the audience. She is four-times Japan's champion and won the team silver medal in the London Olympic Games. She is my friend's daughter and came here with her father. Luckily, I could get her autograph for my son. He's a big fan of her. 

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Ito Beats World Champion

Japanese female table tennis player Mima Ito, 15, won over women's world champion Ding Ning of China with a 4-2 at East Asian qualification tournament for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

She won the World Tean Championships silver medal this year and became the youngest winner on the World Tour last year. She said that "my dream is to get gold in the singles and team event at my home Olympics at Tokyo 2020.” I believe she can do it. 

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Goes to Rio

Japanese Swimming Olympic Trials were held in Tokyo. Only top two swimmers who surpassed Olympic qualifying time at the races can take part in the summer Olympics. That was very simple. Olympic marathon runners should be selected by that kind of simple way. 

While former gold medalist Kosuke Kitajima couldn't reach Rio de Janeiro, many young swimmers including a junior high school student will advance to the summer games. I hope they will perform their best at the Olympics. 

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Tokyo Olympics New Logo

Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizers showed four replacement logos for coming Tokyo games. The original embl was denied because it was suspected of plagiarism.

I like A, the simple one, navy blue Japanese style checkerboard pattern, called 'ichimatsumoyo'. It looks simple and strong. How about you?

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Rio Goes to Rio

The Rio Watari, 24, has been selected to the women’s 75-kg division at this summer’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics. 

She was originally two categories under the class. After she failed to go to the Olympics at the 63-kg division, she decided to try 75-kg division. She had to gain 10 kg, so she had had five meals a day for six months. It might be tough, but she did it. 

She was born in Matsue, where I live, and named Rio by chance. At the time, of course, no one knew the Olympics would be held in Rio de Janeiro. Her name might lead her to Rio de Janeiro. That's for sure. 

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Table Tennis Player Hirano Retires

Five-time national table tennis champion and the 2012 London  Olympics team silver medalist Sayaka Hirano will end her career in April. 

She is very popular among table tennis players and fans because she has full of fighting spirit. She made a lot of come-from-behind victories in the big tournaments. 

She took part in the world table tennis championships 14 times and two Olympic Games, but she couldn't join Japan's national team this year both world championships and Rio de Janeiro Olympics. 

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Sano Withdraws Olympics Logo

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics logo has been criticized for plagiarism since it officially revealed in public.

At first, a Belgian designer pointed out the similarities between Sano's logo and a Belgian museum's logo that he had designed. Sano denied stealing aides from the logo. 

After that, Sano admitted that his company's employee plundered ideas from someone's works on an advertising campaign. In addition, he noticed that he used a copyrighted pictures for his presentation of Olympics logo without any permission from the author. 

He made a statement after announced the withdrawing that he didn't admit stealing ideas on Olympics logo, but he couldn't endure current situation on him and his family. 

Who is responsible for that? I think it never be decided who is. It's really shameful. 

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Tokyo 2020 Logo

Japan Olympic Committee has chosen Kenjiro Sano's design for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games logo the other day. After the selection, a Belgian designer insisted similarity between his work and the Tokyo logos. 

Mr. Sano officially denied stealing ideas from the Belgian theater's logo. I'm not familiar with design, but the two emblems are a little bit similar to me. There are tens of thousands of emblems all over the world. No one can avoid similarities in designing logos. Of course, you must not plagiarize someone's works. 

Aside from the controversy over the design, I don't really like Sano's emblems for Tokyo Olympics. I think they are not suitable for Japanese culture. I like more colorful and positive design. His emblems are too dark to Olympic Games. Olympic is a festival, isn't it? 

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2022 Beijing Olympics

After many cities withdraw from the race, Beijing has been chosen to 2022 Winter Olympics against Almaty in Kazakshtan. The Chinese capital will be the first city to host both summer and winter Olympic Games. 

Like Sochi and PyeongChang, the 2022 Olympics has a problem, lack of snow. Beijing will make a man-made snow area far from the city. How come they can call it Beijing Olympics?

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