2020 Olympics Agreement

On Monday, June 23, 2014, the “University Collaborative Agreement Signing Ceremony and Memorial Symposium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic & Paralympic Games” was held at the Okuma Auditorium in Waseda University. Together with the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the universities jointly agreed to cooperate by sharing their resources for the promotion of the Olympics and drive operative measures. The signing ceremony was held as a kick start to the collaborative efforts put forth towards a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games. Among the total of 1,129 universities, there were 552 universities that joined the collaboration, of which over 200 universities participated in the signing ceremony.
 
The ceremony started with a welcoming speech by Yoshiro Mori, former prime minister and current chairman of the Olympic Organising Committee, followed by a speech by Waseda University President Kaoru Kamata representing the participating universities. Tokyo Metropolitan University Chairman of the Board Saburo Kawabuchi also gave a speech representing the trustees of the Committee.
 
Other speakers included Anna Doi, freshman at Daito Culture University, who ran the 4 x 100m relay race at the London Olympics, and Fukutaro Yamazaki, senior at Shinshu University, who competed in the alpen ski race at the Sochi Paralympics. As guest speaker, AISTS (Academy International des Sciences et Techniques de Sport) Chairman Jan-Anders Manson addressed the participants at the end of the signing ceremony.
 
At the photo session, professors and athletes representing their universities held the signed agreement at the podium, taking 7 rounds of pictures to mark the memorable kick-off event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.
 
From Chuo University, Faculty of Letters Professor Masaaki Mori attended the event, who was assigned as the Advisor to the President in the Promotion of Sports Section in May. Also Takuya Takashi, 3rd year Faculty of Law student at Chuo, who has won the National Cycling Tournament, participated in the ceremony to represent the future potential athletes of Tokyo 2020.
During the memorial symposium, there was a keynote lecture given by the Chairman of the Organising Committee Toshiro Muto, followed by a panel discussion facilitated by Tsukuba University Professor Hisashi Sanada, also a member of the Organising Committee. The panel discussion featured Organising Committee Board Chief Executive Yukihiko Nunomura, AISTS Organising Director Claude Stricker, Organising Committee Board member, alumni and faculty of Nippon Sport Science University and London Olympian Rie Tanaka, and Tohoku University Graduate School Professor Ryoichi Nagatomi, each giving ideas for university-initiated actions leading to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
 
Everyone who participated in the event shared the visions of developing global human resources and promoting further international exchanges, volunteer activities for various languages and cultures, and promoting and educating the Paralympics. With the power and philosophy of education as legacy handed down from the Nagano Olympics, the universities and all participants came together in agreement to take the first step towards a new beginning for 2020.