TUFS Students Report their Activities at the Rio Olympics

June 21, 2017

On Sunday 13 ^th November 2016, two TUFS students gave their reports at "University Partnership: Rio to Tokyo for Students", an event forming part of the Tokyo 2020 Education Programme (sponsored by the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games). This programme consisted of two parts: in the first part 'Looking Back on the Rio Games', students who were in some way involved in the Olympic and Paralympic Games gave reports on their experiences, while the second part consisted of a symposium discussing preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Games under the theme "Go Tokyo!".

Joining from TUFS were NIIYAMA Misako (School of International and Area Studies European area studies 2 ^nd year student) and IKEDA Anna (School of Language and Culture Studies Filipino language 2 ^nd year student), who each gave a report of their language volunteer activities at the Rio Olympics and Paralympics. They covered not only the content of their activities, but also proposed how they could use their experience in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Having had direct experience of the event, they gave persuasive suggestions, and the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and teachers and staff members from each university listened with great enthusiasm.

More details on the event can be viewed here .

Comment from NIIYAMA

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to share my valuable experiences at Rio with so many people at this kind of event, and the student reports which were given from so many different perspectives were deeply interesting. Even after the event had finished, I was motivated by students involved in activities preparing for the next Olympics who asked me about my experiences. At this event, I think that we were able to make an appeal to invigorate student involvement in the Tokyo Olympics.

Comment from IKEDA

I am tremendously grateful to have been able to hear these extremely beneficial presentations from so many participants. I had the chance to meet with several Japanese people when I was working at Rio, but many of them were older than me and I didn't have the chance to meet with people my age, so being able to meet with people of my generation who were engaged in activities at the same location but with other objectives (player/ performer inquiry commission/ research) and hearing each of their activity reports at this meeting was extremely motivating. Many of the students who came to the event were conducting activities focused on the 2020 Olympics in Japan, and I was also made aware of how far I have to go.