At 45, Kazunori Takishima has not missed a single edition of the Olympic Games, winter or summer, since those in Turin in 2006. At the time, he had been amazed by the atmosphere, when complete strangers had him. congratulated after the Olympic coronation of the Japanese skater Shizuka Arakawa. For fifteen years, he has attended seven editions of the Olympic Games: Turin, Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi, Rio and PyeongChang, and has no less than 106 Olympic events on the clock! According to
Guinness World Records
, the current record is 128. If he had been allowed to participate in the Tokyo Olympics, he would have reached 134. A record that will therefore have to wait. “
It's not that important to me,” he
explains to dw.com
.
It would have been nothing more than a nice anecdote.
"
To discover
The full Olympic program
The Olympic medal table
This rich businessman in real estate had bought 197 tickets for the Tokyo Games, spending four million yen, or nearly 35,000 euros.
Notes that he
intended to
share with his family, friends and employees so that they better understand his passion for the Olympics: “
I would have liked (them) to live this experience.
I can try to describe to them, but this emotion cannot be fully conveyed.
You have to go there and see for yourself.
"
Takishima showing his 197 tickets printed outside Tokyo Olympic Stadium YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP
Fanatic of the Olympics, he says he is inspired on a daily basis by the commitment and efforts of Olympic athletes: “
I encounter a lot of obstacles in my work. But, in these moments, I say to myself: it is nothing compared to the tears shed by this athlete.
A sense of dedication that he also dedicates to his passion. During the Olympics, Takishima doesn't sleep much because he wants to see as many competitions as possible. In Rio, he had collapsed from exhaustion outside the stadium and ended up sleeping on the grass. In each edition, Kazunori Takishima dyes his hair in the colors of the Olympic rings, and this year he chose red in support of the Japanese athletes.
Condemned to live these Olympics behind his television, he wants to be very critical of the authorities for not having succeeded in putting in place measures to organize the Olympics in the presence of an audience. For the opening ceremony, he went to the Olympic Stadium, which can normally accommodate 68,000 spectators but which sounded hopelessly empty, with the exception of officials and personalities. Failing to experience a great national holiday, he had to be content to see the fireworks above the enclosure, and follow the rest on his cellphone. As for his unusable tickets, he will be fully refunded and should put all this money into the acquisition of tickets for future editions.
