Swimming: Japan brings team under one roof to improve Olympic results
KYODO NEWS - 7 hours ago - 11:10 | Sports, All
After a disappointing Paris Olympic campaign that yielded just one medal, Japan's swimming team hopes to improve its results at the 2028 Los Angeles Games by getting its athletes used to living in close quarters and facing challenges away from the pool.
In preparation for July's world championships in Singapore, national team members lived together in a "virtual athletes' village" while competing at the Tokyo metropolitan championships in early June.
The camp, aimed at enabling athletes to thrive in unfamiliar environments such as those at Olympic Games, proved to be a valuable experience, according to senior Japan Aquatics official Toshiaki Kurasawa.
"We got more out of it than we expected," Kurasawa said.
The exercise was held at Sea Forest Waterway, the 2021 Olympic canoeing and rowing venue on Tokyo Bay, located far from the nearest convenience stores and other amenities.
The athletes traveled some 20 minutes by bus to the competition venue, the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, just as they would at an Olympics.
Japan's sole Paris Games medalist, men's 400-meter individual medley silver winner Tomoyuki Matsushita, bunked in a room with seven teammates while competing at the metropolitan championships.
Despite poor sleep due to a roommate's snoring, he was able to set a good time in the pool.
"We were able to achieve our goal of swimming decent times under less-than-ideal conditions," Matsushita said.
In Paris, some athletes had difficulty adjusting when buses to venues ran late. Team officials want them to face such setbacks without it affecting their performance.
"There are limited opportunities to experience life in an athletes' village before the Los Angeles Olympics," Kurasawa said. "We wanted more of the younger team members to have this experience, and to instill in them the sense of competing as part of a team."
Living together as a group has also had a positive effect on team morale in the run-up to the world championships.
"Everyone wants to win and has a strong spirit of competition," Matsushita said. "Being around my teammates makes me more motivated."
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Swimming: Japan's Ikee determined to reclaim place among world's best
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