Sapporo Setting the Standard

8th Asian Winter Games Coverage Proudly Sponsored by the Olympic Council of Asia

(ATR) The Olympic Movement should be looking at Sapporo as the gold standard for how to incorporate long-term legacy into an Olympic Games.

Exhibit A is the area of Makomanai in the southern part of Sapporo that was developed for the 1972 Winter Games.

Makomanai was the main site for the Olympics before being turned into a park which opened three years later. The Makomanai Open Stadium, which hosted the opening ceremony and speed skating, and the Makomanai Ice Arena, which hosted figure skating and ice hockey, remain in use today as fixtures of the park.

For the recently completed Asian Winter Games, the Ice Arena was used for short track speed skating, figure skating and the closing ceremony.

But the legacy of the Sapporo Games is so much more than venues still being used 47 years later.

Infrastructure including the subway, water and sewage, electricity, and communications systems was developed in order to host the Games.

What was the Olympic Village is now a housing complex across from the Makomanai transit station. The service center for athletes near the former village became Makomanai-Midori elementary school. Today, the center is a facility called "Makomaru" which offers learning opportunities for local children and mothers. The press center from the 1972 Games became "Compass", a facility with a gymnasium and a swimming pool.

There is Makomanai-Akebono junior high school next to Makomanai stadium. Susumu Arashima, a vice-principal of the school, tells Around the Rings "This building was a management office of the Games in 1972. The demand for junior high school had increased at that time. This building was originally planned to be used as a school after the games. I recognize this building is historically important. The emblem of Sapporo 1972 is reused as our school badge."

Despite the history, Arashima says "We rarely remember the Olympics. We used to hold some events to remember but not anymore. It’s just an old memory."

But Gaku Umeda, a chairman of the Sapporo sports bureau bid promotions department, told ATR "The influence of Sapporo 1972 for children was important".

"Many children got involved in the sports movement and formed a sports culture," he says. "Elementary school students and junior high school students in Sapporo get familiar with skiing and skating through a physical education program. Sapporo has a nice foundation for winter sports."

"Volunteers in Sapporo 1972 have actively been involved in other sports events," Umeda says. For example, many of the 4,600 volunteers for the Asian Winter Games also helped out during the 1972 Games. Sapporo’s mayor says the city is willing to host the winter Olympics in 2026.

Should it win the right to host a second Games, Sapporo could have a hard time surpassing the legacy it produced the first time around.

Click here to see a photo gallery from Makomanai.

Written by Hironori Hashimoto in Sapporo, with editing by Gerard Farek