A national holiday for Sports Day

Today, October 13th 2025, is Sports Day in Japan. It is a national holiday. When it was first established it was called 'Physical Education Day' and it was on October 10th annually. It was celebrated on October 10th because that is the anniversary of the first day of the Tokyo Olympics, which were held in 1964. With the revision of the public holiday law in 2000, and the Happy Monday System, 'Physical Education Day' became 'Sports Day' and the date was changed to the second Monday of October. 

Until the pandemic, my town had a sports festival on sports day annually. But since the pandemic they have decided not to have it. It was good fun on the day, but there were a lot of unnecessary meetings in the run up to it and it was always hard to find people to participate in the various sporting events. With the result it usually ended up being the same people to participate in most of the events. As I got older I found it quite tiring to do a 100 metre sprint, followed by a tug of war and then having to throw bean bags into a basket!  Some towns still have them to this day.

Some people do participate in a sporting event on sports day, but I think many people just enjoy having a day off work or school! Does your town or place of employment have sporting or family events on Sports Day? Do you participate?