With the cherry blossoms in full bloom, delegates from the British Olympic Association (BOA) visited a Hiyoshi Campus that was bustling with new students and club members eager for new recruits on a beautiful April day.
Coaches and team leaders for long-distance swimming, table tennis, badminton, equestrian, golf, and sport climbing visited sites earmarked for use by athletes to train and unwind during the pre-Games camp, including the swimming pool and athletics track. BOA delegates who visited in 2018 were taken back by the rapid progress made to the new Hiyoshi Commemorative Hall, which now towers over the construction site. Others were impressed by the orderliness of the reconstruction work, which they felt was "very Japanese."
The group was accompanied by members of the Global Sports team at the British Embassy in Tokyo and Professor Hiroyuki Ishida of the Keio University Sports Medicine Research Center.