Political Pulse

9 Sports To Be Cut from National Junior High Tournament;Sumo, Skiing and More Sacrificed For Manageable Event

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
Students play badminton at the 2023 Nippon Junior High School Tournament.

By Yuji Kondo

8:00 JST, September 14, 2024

Nine of the 20 sports currently included in the Nippon Junior High School Tournament (Zenchu) will be eliminated starting in 2027, the Japan Junior High School Physical Culture Association (NJPA) has announced. This reform is intended to reduce the burden on teachers. However, since it will clearly have a negative impact on the popularization of sports and the strengthening of athletes, some sports organizations have expressed concern. How can the Zenchu be made sustainable?

The nine sports affected by the cuts are swimming, handball, skiing, gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, men’s softball, sumo, skating and ice hockey. Women’s softball will continue.

The Zenchu, in which junior high school students compete to be the best in the country, began in 1978 with seven sports and now includes a total of 20 sports, 16 in the summer and four in the winter, with a total of about 13,000 participants. Reducing the number of events by nine — a reduction by nearly half — is a drastic and unprecedented change.

Why is such a major reform necessary? The reason is that the burden on teachers was far too great. In the Zenchu, teachers are responsible for setting up the venue and organizing the events. Teachers from the host cities share the work of soliciting sponsors and obtaining advertisements to be included in the program for each event. In addition, in recent years, the extreme heat caused by global warming has become a problem at the summer meeting, and measures to prevent heatstroke have also become necessary.

An executive member of the NJPA in the Hokuriku-Shinetsu region (Fukui, Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa and Nagano prefectures), which hosted the Zenchu in August this year, complained, “Is it the teachers’ job to find sponsors and even collect advertising?” And the sports director of the NJPA also complained, “Seventy percent of the teachers feel the burden of coaching club activities. The system that relies on teachers’ sacrifices should be changed.”

In response to the dissatisfaction of teachers involved in such club activities, the NJPA has been discussing reform proposals in a three-year project since 2021, with a special committee made up of representatives from nine regional blocks across the country.

According to those involved, the expert committee repeatedly expressed opinions in favor of abolishing the Zenchu, saying things like, “There are already separate national tournaments organized by sports federations, so keeping the Zenchu only up to the regional tournament level would be sufficient.”

After much discussion, the expert committee agreed last year that sports with little club activity in junior high schools nationwide would not be included in the Zenchu. In January of this year, the committee proposed that sports with clubs in fewer than 20% of 10,000 junior high schools nationwide in fiscal 2020 should be excluded in principle.

As a result, eight sports, for which fewer than 1,000 junior high schools nationwide have club activities, were selected for removal. These did not include swimming, for which there are clubs at more than 1,000 schools, but the All-Japan Junior Olympic Cup organized by the Japan Swimming Federation is held around the same time as the Zenchu. Because of this, swimming was also included on the list of sports to be cut.

Commenting on the large-scale reduction of events, the NJPA said, “If we don’t make progress in resolving the situation and push forward with the reform, it will be difficult to continue holding the Zenchu, which is a big stage for junior high school students.” They emphasized their position that streamlining was a “painful decision” that was necessary to make the Zenchu a sustainable event in the future.

In addition, many students attend private clubs for swimming and gymnastics. One NJPA board member emphasized the importance of the reform, saying: “The top athletes aim to compete in competitions organized by sports federations, so the impact of the decision to exclude them from the Zenchu will be small. On the other hand, the burden on teachers will be greatly reduced.”

This decision left the sports federations in a state of consternation.

Japan Gymnastics Association Vice President Takehiro Kashima said, “I am very disappointed because the Zenchu has made a significant contribution to the spread of gymnastics.” But he also expressed his intention to establish an alternative tournament, saying, “I want to make sure that junior high school students have the opportunity to participate.”

The Zenchu skating competition has been held in Nagano City since 2007, and a Japan Skating Federation official expressed concern, saying, “We need to discuss the future, including with the local government, which has been supporting us.”

At a press conference in July, Japan Sports Agency head Koji Murofushi gave a positive assessment of cutting nine sports from the Zenchu. “This is not to deprive children of competitive sports, but rather an initiative to create a better environment by centralizing the events of sports organizations due to the large number of national tournaments,” Murofushi said.

The Zenchu was established with the aim of providing junior high school students with the opportunity to participate in sports as part of their education, to improve their skills, and to promote their physical and mental health. In recent years, however, it has come under increasing criticism for fostering a “win-at-all-costs” mentality.

Uchida Ryo is a professor of the sociology of education at Nagoya University who has written books such as “Black Club Activities,” whose title is a riff on the concept of “black companies” that subject employees to abuses such as overwork. “This is an unprecedented reform, and I think it was a wise decision,” Ryo said. “If the tournament is changed, it will help solve problems such as the burden on teachers and overzealous coaching. It will also be a great opportunity to create an environment where students who want to become top athletes and those who want to enjoy sports as a hobby can follow separate tracks.”

How will junior high school sports be managed in the wake of these reforms? How can we move away from a system that relies on the services of overburdened teachers? Of course, each sports organization will have to come up with its own alternative plan, but it will also be necessary for the education and sports worlds to work together to devise a sustainable system.

Political Pulse appears every Saturday.