A meeting between the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) and the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Costa Rica was held today in Tokyo, Japan, where the two organizations entered into an athletic exchange partnership agreement entitled “Sport for Tomorrow”.
Similar to what has already been in put in place between the 2020 Summer Olympics host and the countries of Australia and Great Britain, the agreement between Costa Rica and Japan “will endeavor to allow their athletes, coaches, support officials and staff to have the opportunity to take part in exchange programs between the two nations, while they will also transfer marketing information to each other.” (InsidetheGames.biz)
These programs, focused on the young generation of talent that might be ready for the 2020 Olympics, but not necessarily the 2016 Games, include competitions, joint training camps, coach exchange programs, and sports science exchanges between the two nations. The partnership will also work in tandem in the fight against doping in sport, by way of promoting anti-doping activities and information-sharing in the name of an overall cleaner and fairer sporting environment.
Henry Nuñez, head of the Costa Rican NOC and 1988/1996 Olympian in judo succinctly described his country’s goal, as follows: “Our next Olympic dream is to win a fifth or a sixth Olympic medal, and we want to make it come true at the Games in Tokyo 2020.” Nuñez believes that Japan is the right force with which to align Costa Rica on both a technical and knowledge level in order to make this dream a reality, saying, “Despite the distance between Costa Rica and Japan, we have eight years of excellent diplomatic relations and Japan has helped us in the past with coaches and sport equipment.”
For its part, by the time Tokyo 2020 is upon us, Japan aims to have benefitted 10 million people across 100 countries in partnerships like Sport Tomorrow with Costa Rica. As Japan has already signed agreements with 32 National Olympic Committees to date, this goal does not seem too far out of reach.