At the foot of an active volcano in northern Japan, shouts rang out, competitors sized each other up and snowballs whistled through the air in a serious game of yukigassen — a sport with Olympic dreams.
The competition over the weekend has been held every year in Sobetsu, a town on the main northern island of Hokkaido, where the game — essentially a snowball fight — became a sport 37 years ago.
On the field, brute strength is not enough. Japan’s yukigassen federation emphasizes the “mental challenge” posed by the game, in which players on both teams pelt their opponents while taking cover behind shelters.
Photo: AFP
The goal: Hit all seven players on the opposing team using perfectly spherical snowballs made with a special machine, or capture their flag.
“When you get hit, it hurts, but it’s mostly your pride that takes the blow,” said Toshihiro Takahashi, a 48-year-old civil servant dripping with sweat after his match.
The idea of turning yukigassen into a sport was born out of a crisis in Sobetsu.
Photo: AFP
While visitors once flocked to the town to enjoy its hot springs, the eruption of Mount Usu in 1977 brought tourism in the area to an abrupt halt.
Residents, looking for ways to put their town back on the map, had a flash of inspiration when they saw a group of tourists having fun during a snowball fight and thought: What if this children’s game could save the town?
“It’s a primitive sport, almost instinctive for human beings,” said Yuji Ano, president of the tournament’s organizing committee.
Photo: AFP
“Our ancestors were surely doing the same thing. It’s the oldest winter sport in human history: Long before skating or skiing, humans were already throwing snowballs at each other. That’s its biggest appeal,” Ano said.
All that remained was to put rules down on paper, develop special helmets and invent a machine to mold the snowballs.
Yukigassen — which means “snowball fight” in Japanese — was born, and the first international tournament took place in 1989.
The sport spread to Australia three years later, then to Finland, which set up a national federation in 1995.
After that it caught on elsewhere in Scandinavia, as well as in Russia and North America, and is now played in 13 countries, Ano said.
Keen to capitalize on the international expansion, officials want to turn yukigassen into an Olympic sport.
Ano said that there are few team sports at this year’s Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, which were wrapping up yesterday.
This year, more than a thousand players came to compete in Sobetsu, but not a single foreign team is among the 118 entrants.
Atasu, a 55-year-old who has been playing yukigassen for more than 30 years and chose to give only his nickname, admitted it had become challenging to recruit players.
“The [Japanese] population is shrinking, and there are also fewer people playing. We have to promote yukigassen and try to attract people,” he said. “That’s the hardest thing right now.”
To boost the number of registered players and try to win over the International Olympic Committee, the sport has, paradoxically, had to step away from snow.
Artificial balls have been developed so it can be played in gyms or on the beach, turning a seasonal battle into a global sport playable year-round.
However, another major problem stands in the way of the Olympic dream: complex officiating that makes it difficult to train new referees, Ano said.
“Eight referees watch each match, where 180 snowballs can be flying” during a three-minute set, he said.
“Judging accurately is almost impossible. As long as we haven’t solved that issue, it will be difficult” to stake a claim for the Olympics, he said.
US national team star Folarin Balogun was among the scorers as AS Monaco on Friday won 3-1 at Paris Saint-Germain, dealing a blow to the side from the French capital before they face Chelsea in a crunch UEFA Champions League round-of-16 tie. Maghnes Akliouche gave Monaco a first-half lead at the Parc des Princes, and Aleksandr Golovin doubled their advantage early in the second half of the French Ligue 1 clash. Bradley Barcola pulled one back for the reigning European champions, but Balogun struck shortly after with a fifth goal in his last five games as Monaco claimed a precious
Teenage star Lamine Yamal’s superbly-taken goal on Saturday earned Barcelona a 1-0 win at Athletic Bilbao in Spanish La Liga. The champions restored their four-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid, who had on Friday temporarily closed the gap by beating Celta Vigo. Atletico Madrid tightened their grip on third with an entertaining 3-2 win over Real Sociedad. Yamal, 18, curled into the top corner after 68 minutes to split the sides at Athletic’s San Mames stadium. “We’re already seeing what Lamine can do — he puts it right in the top corner, and there’s nothing the keeper can do,” Barca
West Ham United on Monday advanced to the FA Cup quarter-finals with a 5-3 penalty shoot-out win against Brentford, who paid the price for Dango Ouattara’s spot-kick blunder. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side twice blew the lead as Jarrod Bowen’s double was canceled out by an Igor Thiago brace to force extra-time in the 2-2 draw at the London Stadium, but in the shoot-out, Brentford winger Ouattara attempted a chipped Panenka penalty, but his woeful effort was straight at West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola. It was an awful mistake by the Burkina Faso international and West Ham took full advantage. Bowen, Valentin Castellanos, Callum
CHANCE TO QUALIFY: Both teams now have three points from two games, and Taiwan sit ahead of Vietnam and behind Japan, who last night beat India 11-0 Taiwan yesterday defeated Vietnam 1-0 to move into second place in Group C at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup with one match remaining. Su Yu-hsuan scored the decisive goal in the 26th minute after Taiwan midfielder Saki Matsunaga’s shot hit the crossbar, leaving Su to nod the rebound into an empty net for the team which won the last of their three Asian Cup titles in 1981. It was a deserved victory for Taiwan, 2-0 losers to Japan on Wednesday, who created several chances to extend their lead. Vietnam, the 2022 quarter-finalist, beat India in their opener, but struggled to
RSS