sports

Judo abuse scandal hits Tokyo Olympic bid

12 Comments
By JIM ARMSTRONG and MARI YAMAGUCHI

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

12 Comments
Login to comment

I agree with Whiting-too deeply entrenched in Japanese society.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Absolutely, corporal punishment occurs everyday in some JH school in Japan. Parents are afraid to complain cause no one complains. And the cycle continues...

4 ( +5 / -1 )

The physical and emotional abuse is not only from the coaches, it is often from senpai too, and this should be addressed too. Though I will not be holding my breath on this.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Over on another thread a report is quoted as saying that the fukushima disaster was allowed to happen because of a culture of reflexive obedience. This is a similar thing.

The Judo Federation should have dealt with it. They chose to ignore it, and now it's blown wide open with the Olympic bid. Once again the outside world is getting to see the true reality of Japan's culture of cover ups and collusion. I hope this doesn't affect the bid but I'll be surprised if it doesn't and I'll feel very sorry for the good people who have worked so hard to bring the Olympics here.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Thank god this will hurt the bid. The Olympics is not what Japan needs to recover from a two-decade recession, natural disaster, and continued manufacturing decline.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Doesn't take much to see a future where Tokyo loses its bid for the 2020 Olympics and then the 15 women who "started" this are ostracized here in Japan. Just as screwed up as the ijime, turning a blind eye to something that is obviously wrong, and reflexive obedience, is the concept that the victim of a crime also bears some responsibility for the wrongdoing. But this all too true of present-day society in Japan and won't be going away soon, IMHO.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

There's a good chance more of this kind of abuse will be revealed.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@Moonraker

The physical and emotional abuse is not only from the coaches, it is often from senpai too

This senpai on kohai abuse is arguably far worse than that directly from coaches in Japan, it is explicitly/implicitly encouraged and condoned by coaches here, and regularly used by coaches to bully compliance out of young athletes at all levels of sport (from jhs on up). It truly is heart-wrenching.

In Japanese sport, the stick approach nearly always seems to take precedence over the carrot, and the goal of sport is to instill endurance -- while feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction are shunned.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Yep the two words, sempi & kohi, all too quickly connect with abuse rather than mentoring sadly.

This problem is pervasive in ALL aspects of society here, sports just brings out some of the worst examples is all.

Three cheers for the lady judoka for bringing this out, THANK YOU, WELL DONE!

And SHAME on the JOC for trying to hide this because of the olympic bid, in a normal country we'd soon be seeing a rash of resignations & firings!

And the report saying abuse/violence isnt a problem in most sports...................puuuleeeeeeeeeeeze dont even try to cover this up your credibility now ranks at tepco level, shame on you all!

Again three cheers to the brave ladies who did the RIGHT THING, Japan needs a lot more of that!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Sounds like the word "shitteta" is coming back to them.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The sports community must make concerted efforts to go back to the fundamental principle that violence should be eradicated from sports instruction, Shimomura said.

How can you go back to a fundamental principle you never had?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I find it odd that the term "human rights abuses" never comes up; surely that's that it was?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites