Athletes’ careers in Japan: Before and after retirement in sports

Abstract

Fact note: Japan is an islands nation situated off the east coast of the Asian continent. The nation’s roughly 7,000 islands extend in an ark of about 3,000 km. The total land area is 377,873 km 2 , with a population of about 128 million inhabitants. The of cial language is Japanese. After the Second World War, one of the most signi cant events in Japan was the adoption of a new constitution, on 3 May 1947, which has not been changed since then. Sport: The XVIIIth summer Olympic Games, which took place in Tokyo in 1964, were the rst Olympic Games to take place in Asia. Olympic ‘fever’ caused increased activity in sports clubs in the country in general and at schools in particular. The most popular sports in Japan are baseball, football, judo, volleyball, basketball, track and eld, marathon, swimming, tennis, gure skating, skiing and ski jumping. Career research and assistance: Sociological and psychological research on athlete career in Japan is in its infancy, but increased efforts are being made to do more. Speci cally, from the viewpoint of identity formation and recon guration, it has focused on studying the psychological problems experienced by top-level athletes after their retirement from competitive sports. Recently, the Japanese Olympic Committee and the Japanese Professional Football League established career assistance programs for Japanese athletes.