Volleyball made its Olympic Games debut in Tokyo in 1964, at the 18th Tokyo Olympic Games, where MIKASA was approved as one of several game ball suppliers. Since the 22nd Summer Olympic Games in Moscow 1980, we have continued to witness the sports of volleyball at the Olympics. Then, our indoor volleyball and beach volleyball are the exclusive official ball for all the games organized by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) throughout 2020.

Our concept are: (1) to pursue soft feeling and softness of volleyball, (2) to strive for the performance of ball control, (3) to seek the balls visibility.

We have succeeded in achieving the softness of volleyballs, with the base of artificial leather made of the non-woven micro fiber fabrics and also with the resin layer inside foamed, which has made the double-cushion construction and contributed to attaining the softness.

The ball flight depends upon the asperity of ball surface. Fine asperities have been made to the ball surface, which is "Dimple Construction" and for the aerodynamic characteristics, it has contributed to more stable flight of our volleyballs.

From top athletes to enthusiasts working on sports to improve their health, sports gears are evolving day by day to maximize their performance. In particular, it is no exaggeration to say that the sports festival Olympic games is a stage to show off the latest sports gear developed from research on structures and materials based on human attribute. In 2020, it is well known that the Olympic summer games will be held in Tokyo for the first time in 56 years. In this paper, it is described the transition of sports equipment, taking footwear as an example, and then introduced the research and development cases which are investigating on as a technology to support athletes in the Tokyo Olympic games, as well as measures against heat weather.

Table tennis is a rare sport where players can use completely different equipment from the opponents, but this is the one of attractions of table tennis. There are various types of table tennis blades, and is the same situation for tennis rackets, golf clubs, etc., but in the case of table tennis, players can put their favorite rubber on these blades and you can customize to different equipment to compete. Even if the same blade, if the rubber is different, the racket will be completely different character in terms of spin, speed, and impact feeling.

Rubber has been becoming a very important equipment for table tennis.

Rubber covered softball was developed in Japan in 1950. Similar to rubber covered baseball, it was first invented to substitute leather covered softballs. Since then, rubber covered softballs have been widely recognized in Japanese market for its special characteristics such as durability, safety in playing and usability.

In this article, the history of rubber covered softballs in Japan is first described. Then the keys of the development rubber covered softball and the status of the current products are also introduced.

The author would like to believe the great possibility, safety in playing and usability of rubber covered softball, especially for the players of many developing countries.

As the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic games come near, people are growing interest in para-sports. On the other hand, para-sporting equipment needs to improve its performance. We developed rubber sole for running specific prosthesis that para-triathlete uses running section.

This paper describes introduction of prosthesis and activities of development of rubber sole.

Just as the rules of playing golf, golf balls also have rules as equipment. Many of the golf balls sold on the market are certified balls, but various measures are taken to support golfers while satisfying the rules. The purpose of this article is to introduce the field of golf ball development by providing three examples of technology used in our products.

During a driver shot, the ball is greatly deformed and affected by the physical properties of the core inside the ball. The first technical example is the compounding technology that improves the rebound of the core. This technology is verified by dynamic mechanical analysis, and the TEM image that shows the state of micro-dispersion change of the co-crosslinking agent due to the developed compounding. The second technical example introduces the compounding technology to obtain the optimal trajectory and flight distance by suppressing the spin of the ball by optimal deformation during a tee shot.

Specifically, it is realized by a compounding technology that expands the difference in hardness between the core surface and the center. Finally, the article introduces the technology that reduces the repulsion of the ball during an approach shot to the optimum level while maintaining the rebound during a driver shot.