How To Make People Care About the Paralympics

08/31/21 • 58 min

The world's focus is now on the Paralympic games - with many nations having the most hours of coverage that they've ever had, it's easy to forget that it wasn't always that way. Host Noel Thatcher often recounts the story of his triumphant return to London after his first Paralympics Gold and being met with an indifferent UK who weren't interested in Parasport. Fast-forward to 2020 and all of that seems to have changed, but why?
Well today we're talking to Yamaguchi Ichiro, a journalist at the Mainichi Shinbun and one of the leaders in getting Parasport into print media in Japan. Parasport was rarely written about and when it was, it was through the lense of human interest stories. He changed this, but convincing the editors that Parasport is sport was no easy task. We catch up with Ichiro to find out more.

Previous Episode

Bringing the GAA to Japan

It took 111 years from the Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA) being formed in Ireland to it coming to Japan. Formed by some Irish expats, the club has grown and has players from Ireland, Japan and all over the world.
But how do you become the first sports club in a country with little-to-no knowledge of the sport? How do you find the pitch and the equipment? We find out just how Japan GAA has fitted in to their Tokyo home, and what comes next for Ireland's sport in Japan.
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Japan GAA // Twitter // Instagram
Japan Sport Stories // Twitter // [email protected]
Japan Research Centre at SOAS

Next Episode

Was Tokyo 2020 Worth the Wait?

Now Tokyo 2020 is all behind us, was it all worth it? What were the highlights and why were we so quiet during the games? In a special episode, we reminisce about the games, how our guests performed, and talk about what the future hold for sport in Japan and our podcast.
Get in touch with us:
[email protected]
Twitter: @JSStories
Website JapanSportStories.com