Oita City (2021 Host Town)

Kyushu | Oita City

2021 Tokyo Olympics & Paralympics

How wheelchair athletes brought a Kyushu city and Switzerland together for the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics Games

Hot springs and wheelchair races

For the vast majority of visitors, Oita is synonymous of steamy hot springs, enchanting natural landmarks, and juicy "toriten" chicken tempura. Located a few kilometers away from the famed Hells of Beppu, in northeastern Kyushu, the city is in reality nothing short of heavenly!

For sportsmen, however, the area has another unmissable annual landmark: the Oita International Wheelchair Marathon. Organized since 1981, the competition welcomes hundreds of international male and female athletes every year and is widely seen as one of the highest–level races of its kind in the world. This is also how Switzerland came to be a part of the city’s contemporary history.

Sport brings countries together

From the early 1990s, Switzerland has indeed established a solid dominance over the competition: out of the 37 editions of the Oita International Wheelchair Marathon, a combined total of 21 first places have been won by Swiss athletes and Paralympic medalists Heinz Frei (14 victories) and Marcel Hug (7 victories). Both men are seen as some of the world’s best wheelchair athletes, and they enjoy a great popularity and support in their home country. Their repeated triumphs and the unique hospitality of Oita inhabitants became the starting points of many friendships between Swiss athletes and local sports enthusiasts, and eventually led to Oita teaming up with Switzerland in April 2018 for the 2021 Host Town Initiative.

Shortly after the announcement, on May 19, Ambassador of Switzerland to Japan Jean-François Paroz and Minister Peter Nelson met with Oita Prefecture Governor Katsusada Hirose, Oita City Mayor Kiichiro Sato, and their representatives, to whom the Swiss diplomats expressed their warmest congratulations. In the presence of the Honourable Seishiro Eto, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives, President of the Japan-Switzerland Parliamentarians’ Friendship League and an Oita native, the new partners and friends concluded the visit by raising their glasses to a promising future!

Switzerland is coming to town

The Host Town Initiative was designed by the Japanese government in 2016 to promote educational and sports exchanges between the population living outside Tokyo, foreign countries and visiting Olympic teams before and during the 2021 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In other words, pre-game training camps, showcases, lectures, workshops and festivals will be held all over Oita, providing Swiss athletes and Japanese locals with unique opportunities to meet, exchange and create new ties that will outlast 2021. The same events will simultaneously take place in four other Japanese places: Oyamazaki Town (Kyoto Prefecture), Oita City, Fuji City, and Tsukuba City. Thanks to these special partnerships, the Swiss-Japanese friendship is set to enter the post-2021 period with a renewed vitality and creative power!