With the opening game just three days away you get the feeling Japan will have to perform well on the pitch to engage a nation already seduced by next year’s Tokyo Olympics
There were six people in the bar, five friends and now one stranger too. I would have backed right out but then the barmaid said she wanted to practice her English. She’d been taking lessons, she explained, because she’s so excited about the Tokyo Olympics and is sure she will enjoy it more if she can talk to all the tourists who’ll be coming here next year. By the time I’d finished my drink we had established that no, this wasn’t my first time in Japan, that I have family in Sapporo, and, after I’d made a clumsy mime of typing on the bar, that I was here on business, working as a sports journalist. The one thing we got stuck on was exactly which sport I was here to cover.
Related: Air of unpredictability hangs over Rugby World Cup with adaptability the key | Robert Kitson
Written by Andy Bull in Tokyo
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/17/japan-embrace-rugby-world-cup-shock under the title “Lost in translation? World Cup has arrived in Japan but don’t tell everybody | Andy Bull”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
