Safety warning for Japan’s athletes
Print Edition
JAPANESE athletes at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing this month have been told not to wear their official tracksuits around town due to “safety fears,” according to Japanese media reports.
Delegation chief Yosuke Fujiwara has told Japan’s 78 athletes to wear regular clothes outside the Games venues during the August 16-28 event to avoid any attack, with China-Japan relations at their lowest level in years.
The teenagers will also be encouraged to don facemasks to protect themselves from air pollution.
“When they are outside we want them to be aware that it might not be totally safe,” Fujiwara told Kyodo news agency.
“In the athletes’ village we want them to wear the official Japan tracksuit, but in the city normal clothes are fine.”
In an apparent attempt to avoid upsetting the Chinese, Fujiwara added: “You can get random attacks on the street in Japan too.”
Anti-Japanese resentment runs particularly high in Nanjing, where 300,000 Chinese were killed in 1937 as invading Japanese troops rampaged through the city in what became known as the Nanjing Massacre.
The massacre was the Japanese military’s worst atrocity and remains a bitter stain on the two countries’ relationship.
Fujiwara’s comments came at a time of heightened political tension between Japan and China, which are at odds over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea and historical grievances tied to Japan’s wartime aggression.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent decision to relax strict rules governing the country’s military has further antagonized China, prompting Fujiwara to issue the warning.
But the contestants would still be free to explore the city, he said.
“We think it’s better for the athletes to feel the atmosphere in the city from their own perspective,” Fujiwara said.
Japanese sports teams and the country’s national anthem are sometimes booed in China, most notably at the 2004 Asian Cup football final between China and Japan in Beijing which ended in a full-scale riot after a Japanese victory.
Japan’s delegation arrives in Nanjing tomorrow. It features girls’ badminton junior world champion Akane Yamaguchi and Yuto Muramatsu, who won bronze in the men’s singles at the Japan Open table tennis earlier this year.
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