Elite sports investment is usually justified on the basis that elite sports success has a wide range of social-psychological benefits among the general population. However, insufficient evidence about these positive effects has made it difficult to show the validity to ‘alternative voices’ opposed to the elite sports funding. The purpose of the present study was to estimate the monetary value of elite sports success in Japan by using the contingent valuation method (CVM) addressing the problems in sports management literatures. Data was collected from n=850 stratified randomly selected Japanese by means of an Internet survey. Respondents were asked to state their willingness-to-pay for elite sports policy, which aims Japan being ranked in the top-five in total number of gold medals in the summer Olympics and the top-ten in winter, which is the official target of ‘The Sports Basic Plan’ , using a double-bounded dichotomous choice. The results revealed that median WTP was 405 JPY with a certain amount of validity, which was calculated from the whole population as 42.2 billion JPY. Our results suggest that Japanese believed that social-psychological benefits generated by the elite sports policy exceeded the government elite sports budget (about 16 billion) .

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    The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between experiences in a high school athletic club and resilience. One hundred and ten high school athletic club students (58 first year students ; 36 males, 22 females, 52 second year students ; 30 males, 22 females) completed an athletic situational skills scale, a life skills scale (Ueno and Nakagomi, 1998) and an adolescent resilience scale (Oshio et al., 2002) . Both the athletic situational skills scale and the life skills scale are used to evaluate the psychological skills of students in both their athletic club and school life. The adolescent resilience scale has three subscales, including novelty seeking, emotional regulation, and positive future orientation. Structural equation modeling method was used for the analysis in this study. From the results, it was found that psychological skills in an athletic club relate to resilience through psychological skills in school life. The relationship between experiences in an athletic club and resilience of the second year students was stronger than that of the first year students. This suggests that experiences in a high school athletic club strengthen the resilience of the students if the coaches can work to integrate psychological skills that have been acquired through participation in athletic clubs into school life.

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    The present studies focused on collective efficacy (CE) among Japanese athletes. The purpose of study I was to compare psychological performance CE between individual and team sports, or whether or not athletes had a rival on their team. The aims of study II were to collect, organize, and consolidate enhancement strategies for psychological performance CE. In study I, data were analyzed from 251 athletes who responded to an Internet-based cross-sectional survey. Based on t-testing, no significant difference in psychological performance CE was observed between individual and team sports; however, based on ANCOVA, significant differences were observed regarding whether or not there was a rival on the team. In study II, fifty participants were recruited to participate and a bottom-up approach was adopted by categorizing the types of CE enhancement strategies collected from the participants. The strategies to enhance psychological performance CE were collected through open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviewing. The strategies reported by the participants were categorized via arrangement and adjustment by four workers using the KJ method. The data were classified into 10 to 18 strategies for each psychological performance CE item. This study may provide valuable information for enhancing psychological performance CE among athletes.

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     Pain of flat foot patients often appears at the heel, navicular bone part, and the metatarsal bone part. The purpose of this study was to compare normal arch group and low arch group, to determine differences of the plantar pressure of medial longitudinal arch, and to track the center of foot pressure between those two groups during normal gait.
    The subjects were 18 healthy adults with 36 feet, and we classified 9 normal left arches of the foot, 9 low left arches of the foot, 9 normal right arches of the foot, and 9 low right arches of the foot. The left low arch group showed a significantly greater value of plantar pressure in 1^st metatarsal bone, 3^rd metatarsal bone, 5^th metatarsal bone, arch section, lateral heels, and medial heel in comparison with left normal arch group.
    Right low arch group showed a significantly greater value of plantar pressure in the arch section in comparison with right normal arch group. The center of foot pressure was significantly higher than normal arch groups, and this was considered to show a relationship with pain of the flat foot.
    Tracking the center of foot pressure for low arch groups showed irregular waveforms medially in comparison with normal arch group.
    We have speculated that there is a spring function at the arch of the foot to absorb shock. The low arch foot groups could not perform the spring function under load during gait, so the centers of foot pressure were high.
    The most likely reason why the low arch group showed irregular and more interior waveform from the inside at the locus of the foot pressure was that absorption of the pressure was more inside due to the low medial longitudinal arch. Irregular waveform of the tracking center of foot pressure was considered to show unstable stance phase during gait.

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     The disorder in which the medial longitudinal arch becomes lower is called flatfoot. It is inferred that the flatfoot condition is associated with a certain stress while walking.
     The purpose of this study was to compare the changes of medial longitudinal arch and floor reaction force during gait between two groups : low arch and normal arch, and to make a conjecture about the cause of flatfoot stress while walking.
     The subjects were 6 men and 6 women. The subjects, average age, average body height, and average weight were 23.5±2.5 years old, 165.6±8.2cm, and 56.5±10.8kg, respectively.
     We used medial longitudinal arch ratio, which is the value obtained by dividing the height from the floor surface to navicular bone by actual foot length. The lower arch group showed less than 16.4% of medial longitudinal arch ratio for men, 14.6% for women, among 6 subjects. The normal group showed larger values, among the 6 subjects.
     We measured configuration of arch and floor reaction force during gait movement at the times of heel strike, foot-flat, mid-stance, heel-off, and toe-off and compared them. We recorded the medial longitudinal arch, the changes of the medial arch angle between the line connecting medial heel area and the navicular bone, and the line connecting navicular bone and the first metatarsal head. Two units of high-speed cameras were used to measure this angle. Also measured, with two force plates, were the floor reaction force applied to the hind foot and the floor reaction force applied to the forefoot.
     At HC, FF, and HO phase, the arch angles were significantly larger in the low arch group than in the normal group. The low arch group had larger medial force than the normal group at MS and had smaller posterior force than the normal group at TO phase.
     As for the force components measured by force plates, from these results it appears that the low arch group, having lost the spring stiffness of the foot, is unable to make forward movement smoothly.

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    This research presents a proposal for new golf tournament development in Japan. It is based on a new tournament model which harnesses the characteristics of golf, and it aims at considering the necessary techniques. Interview investigation and a questionnaire about golf tournaments was conducted regarding the three aspects of; just watching, playing, and supporting. The research showed that it may be possible to link these aspects in the planning of tournaments.

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PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of strength training among Japanese elementary school children, and to identify the characteristics of individuals who engage in strength training.
METHODS: This study is a secondary analysis of the SSF National Sports-Life Survey 2012 conducted by the Sasakawa Sports Foundation. In this study, data of elementary school children (n=1,289) were utilized. A logistic-regression analysis was conducted, setting dependent variable as strength training in the past one year and independent variables as school grade, gender, obesity level, educational background of parents, participation in sports clubs, and parental co-participation in exercises and sports.
RESULTS: Totally, 7.4% of children engaged in strength training in past one year. Logistic regression analysis revealed that higher school grade, participation in sports clubs, and parental co-participation in exercises and sports were significantly correlated with strength training in past one year.
DISCUSSION: The majority of Japanese think that strength training is not required lower grade-unlike their thoughts about the correlated factors of physical activity. Also, as with correlated factors of physical activity, participation in sports clubs and parental co-participation in physical activity were key factors for starting strength training for elementary school children.

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    The purpose of this study was to build a "Sports Geographic Information Digital Archive," a website which specializes in sports and physical activities in Japan, and to have people utilize the spatial data, statistical data and maps.
    This archive presents six themes of sport : professional sports, amateur sports, after-school sports clubs, female sports, sports industry and sports facilities.
    Thematic maps have been created using GIS software and offer demographic data, sports data, and short descriptive texts on the maps and references as they are uploaded to a server. Since March 31, 2011, 134 thematic maps have been available for viewing by anyone over the Internet.
    This archive can be accessed through the following three ways :
(1) Using a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari.
    Using a web browser, the archive can be accessed without restrictions on time or place as long as an Internet connection is ensured. The archive was developed on the assumption that most people would access this site using a web browser.
(2) Using ArcGIS Explorer, which is a free GIS viewer issued by Esri Japan. This software gives users an easy way to explore, visualize, and share GIS information.
(3) Using ArcGIS Desktop
    In these three ways, ArcGIS Desktop alone makes it possible to process a thematic map.
    Currently, all thematic maps offered by this archive are classified only at the prefecture level. In the near future, municipally-classified thematic maps and a chronologically ordered listing of those maps are scheduled to be appended to the archive.

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     The purpose of this study was to examine the formation model of sports commitment in its relation to sports participation and persistency by investigating the dynamics of relationships between social supports and athletic identity, athletic identity and sports commitment, and social supports and sports commitment. The participants were 250 collegiate athletes (males : 169 females : 81) . They completed questionnaires (Social Support Scale for Sports, Athletic Identity Measurement Scale, Sports Commitment Scale) . In examining the relationships between sports commitment, athletic identity and social supports by regression analysis, it was found that there were significant relationships between sports commitment and athletic identity, and athletic identity and social supports. On the other hand, there was no significance between sports commitment and social supports. Therefore, this study hypothesized the original theoretical model that social supports described the formation of athletic identity and athletic identity was the predictor variable for formation of sports commitment. The results of the Structural Equation Model (SEM) demonstrated goodness of fit and validity of the original formation model of sports commitment. The results of this study indicated that the formation process of sports commitment effects competitive sports participation and persistency. In addition, this study showed significant differences in the formation process for sports commitment between female and male collegiate athletes.

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    Many of the Special Olympics (SO) district organizations are struggling to secure human resources to support their sports programs. This study aims to explore factors related to the activities of SO volunteer coaches through semi-structured personal interviews. A qualitative study was conducted on thirteen volunteers (seven volunteer coaches and six volunteers) who participated in either an SO table tennis or basketball program in Japan. Content analysis was performed by the KJ method (Kawakita, 1970) . The “pros/facilitators” and “cons/barriers” to being an SO volunteer coach were determined by two members (one undergraduate student and one university lecturer) who specialized in psychology and had experienced the SO program as volunteer coaches. Consequently, fifty-two pros/facilitators and fifty-eight cons/barriers toward being an SO volunteer coach were selected. Through the KJ method, twelve factors were categorized as pros/facilitators and thirteen as cons/barriers. The results of this study are expected to be utilized as basic data to improve SO programs involving volunteer coaches.

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