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The story
The Osaka Junior High School Athletic Federation, run by middle school teachers across Osaka Prefecture, failed to complete the entry procedure for this month’s Junior Olympic U16 Track and Field Championships in Mie Prefecture, leaving eight middle and high schoolers who had been selected to represent Osaka unable to compete. Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura asked the Japan Association of Athletics Federations (JAAF) to make an exception, but the federation pointed to system logs showing the staff member had logged in just one minute before the entry deadline, and refused any special treatment. On 5ch, opinion split between sympathy for the blameless kids and a principle-driven argument that granting an exception would break consistency with past precedent.
JOC Track Meet Entry Oversight: Governor Yoshimura’s Request Denied, Japan Athletics Federation Says ‘No Relief Measures’
Eight middle and high schoolers from Osaka Prefecture have been barred from competing in this month’s national championship because of a late entry submission by Osaka’s athletics federation, and the Japan Association of Athletics Federations, which hosts the event, has announced it will “not implement relief measures.”
The eight students, who live in Osaka Prefecture, were selected to represent Osaka at a meet held in Osaka City last month and were set to compete in this month’s Junior Olympic U16 Championships in Mie Prefecture — but it came out that the Osaka Junior High School Athletic Federation (made up of middle school teachers from around the prefecture) had never actually completed the entry paperwork.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
If the delay was actually caused by some flaw in the entry guidelines themselves, that'd be a different story and should be excused.
Exactly this.
Plus it'd set a precedent that stuff gets waved through if the governor just asks.
It's weird to turn around and paint the Japan Athletics Federation as the villain just because they didn't bend the rules. Must be infuriating for them.
Everything has to be handled the same way across the board, or you lose consistency with both past and future cases.
'We didn't grant relief before, so we won't now' is a weird excuse.
Isn't it more important to not create new victims, even if you catch flak for it?
Being cast as the villain is just unavoidable here.
They simply prioritized the rules over everything else.
That said, the students did originally have the right to compete, and since they're not at fault, it might've been fine to make an exception.
Just punish whoever actually screwed up and call it settled.
This is fundamentally the junior-high federation's own problem to begin with.
I get that the junior-high federation runs on volunteer teachers, so there's that context too — but when the timeline is laid out this clearly, blaming the athletics federation for refusing is a textbook case of 'might makes right' trumping reason.
I get asking 'can't you make an exception?' But attacking them for the answer being no is beyond unreasonable.
Makes you wonder if that means however Hara or Aoyama Gakuin (famous for the Hakone Ekiden relay) run things is just fine too.
It wasn't the middle schoolers or high schoolers who messed up — it was the adults.
Making kids shoulder the consequences of an adult's mistake isn't education.
Protecting kids is what adults are supposed to do.
I don't know enough about how Aoyama Gakuin operates, so no comment there.
Getting criticized for sticking to the rules is just something you have to accept.
You call it unreasonable, but holding the line on rules sometimes takes the conviction to stand firm even under criticism.
• The prefectural athletics association contacted the federation saying their staff member tried to submit the entry through the system around 17:50 on September 24, but the submit button wouldn't appear, and asked them to look into it.
• When the Japan Athletics Federation checked the system logs, it turned out the prefectural staff member had logged into the entry system for the first time about one minute before the application period closed at 18:00 on September 24, and was mid-way through the entry process when the clock passed 18:00 — at which point the submit button disappeared from the system. This was that staff member's very first login; there was no login history at all from the start of the application period (from noon on August 21, 2026) until that moment.
Can't even do the job right AND has a habit of lying about it — might as well fire the guy.
What is this, a last-second auction bid?
The kids already followed the rules — there's nothing for THEM to learn here.
They're just using the kids as a shield to erase an adult's screwup.
Just tell the kids not to trust foolish adults.
Just punish the adults properly — pay cuts, demotions, whatever.
The kids genuinely did nothing wrong here.
That's a line the Japan Athletics Federation gets to say — not something we get to say.
I think speaking up is fine, and personally I'm okay with pushing for relief through political pressure in a case like this too.
But still complaining after they've already reached that conclusion is a different matter. You're aiming at the wrong target.
Especially since the federation laid out the whole timeline and their response in detail. If there were some flaw like too short a window, fine — but that's not what happened here.
If you force them to say yes to this, you open the door to anything going. Surely you get that making a big fuss carries that risk too.
Making a decision means taking on responsibility —
so of course you'll face criticism for it.
You say it's the wrong target, but it's simply wrong for people who followed the rules to be the ones punished.
That's the outcome after weighing all of that. They even put the junior-high federation's negligence on the table for consideration.
The kids are undeniably victims, but granting this could spiral out of control.
From a consistency standpoint, adults need to respect that they had no choice but to decide this way.
And aiming that decision at the Japan Athletics Federation is still wrong — they're following the rules too, same as anyone.
If you're a kid saying this as a kid, I get it as an emotional reaction, and fair enough.
Getting criticized isn't unfair at all —
making a decision naturally carries the risk of criticism.
Also, your argument contradicts itself.
You're saying it's fine for the middle schoolers who followed the rules to be barred, but not fine for the federation that followed the rules to be criticized — that's the exact opposite logic.
that's basically yakuza (gangster) tactics, honestly.
That said, the kids are completely blameless, no?
If they won't even budge on something this small, that side's being yakuza too.
Yakuza vs. yakuza — both sides suck.
Go by that logic and you'd never be able to fix any bad practice or outdated rule, ever.
If it's going to change, it can only change for future cases from here on.
On the other hand, I think the 'no exceptions, period' stance carries real weight given everything that led to it.
If they had decided to grant relief, that would've been a bold call and a lucky break — but treating that as something you're entitled to demand is strange.
That said, I totally get that it's unbearable from the perspective of the people actually affected.
If they can't even make an exception for something this minor, the federation should quit running kids' competitions altogether.
Putting kids first should be obvious, idiot.
Go tell that to the teachers, lol.
Stripping away the future of a kid who did nothing wrong over some vague excuse like 'it'll spiral out of control' — there's no justifying that.
If they can't even tolerate that much, they should quit running a federation for kids.
What about past cases, then?
Does it get approved just because it blows up into a big enough fuss? There are similar cases outside track and field too — are you saying nothing should be done about those either?
If relief is the right call, how exactly would you carry it out? I don't know how far back the old cases go, but what happens to all the ones that didn't get relief?
Is there no answer to that? Are you going to go back and rerun this year's meet retroactively?
Going forward, you just make sure whoever actually screwed up gets punished. That's it.
Setting aside the question of what even letting adults run the JOC accomplishes — by your logic, you'd never be able to change or revise any rule, ever.
Sport means competing within the rules — asking to bend them just this once because it's convenient means you don't deserve to compete.
That logic only applies if the kids themselves were at fault.
Of course Osaka's side needs to be held accountable for this — but that's a separate matter.
There's a lesson here too: leave things to incompetent people, and this is what happens.
Don't need a 'lesson' that teaches you not even teachers can be trusted, lol.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The Junior Olympic U16 is a national championship for middle and high schoolers hosted by the Japan Association of Athletics Federations, in which each prefecture’s athletics association submits entries through an online system. The core issue here is that although the application window ran for more than a month — from noon on August 21 through 18:00 on September 24 — the Osaka Junior High School Athletic Federation’s staff member logged into the system for the very first time just one minute before that deadline. The Japan Athletics Federation has published its system logs, making it all but certain this was a delay on the staff member’s end rather than any technical outage. The thread’s core disagreement pits those who argue an exception should be made since the kids bear no responsibility against those who argue that granting even one exception would undermine consistency with past and future decisions — and no consensus was reached on which side is right. It’s also worth noting that the Osaka Junior High School Athletic Federation is reportedly run by teachers as an unpaid, volunteer side duty, hinting at a weak organizational structure behind the scenes — though the thread didn’t dig deeply into that angle.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch Nandemo Jikkyo G board thread “Governor Yoshimura: ‘The kids did nothing wrong! Let them compete!’ — Athletics Federation: ‘No way! We can’t make a one-time exception here!’“
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