Rugby

While most people around the world know the Summer Olympic Games will be here in Tokyo in 2020, we actually have a very large sporting engagement to host a year before that during early autumn 2019, just over eight months from when this will hit the interwebs. The Rugby World Cup is the world’s third largest sports tournament behind the Summer Games and Soccer World Cup. Japan has hosted both of those other sports before, so this should be like old hat to us (we hope) and give us a chance to test out a lot of facilities that will also be playing double duty in 2020. Not to mention giving a chance for Japan’s burgeoning rugby scene to be front and center during the tourney. Yes, that’s right, Japan has some great rugby teams and storied past. [spacer height=”10px”] Japan’s Rugby History There are some 3000 officially sanctioned clubs in Nippon, and the sport has been played since the latter half of the 19th century when a team organized itself called the Yokohama Foot Ball Club. Later on due to the influence of foreign professors, Keio University along with a host of other prominent colleges started teams and began…