Team Japan @ National Training Center (NTC) Training Hall in Tokyo

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This was shot at the Ajinomoto National Training Center in Kita Tokyo back in November 2016, just before the Asian Youth/Junior Championships held in the Tokyo area (in Ota). Many of the lifters were there to train for that event and we saw a lot of them compete a few days or a week later. We arrived at the building close to the end of the female session, but we shot the whole male session including Mitsunori Konnai (69), Masanori Miyamoto (69), Eishiro Murakami (105+), Kosuke Chinen (105+), Yuya Senoo (56) and several others. Some non-Junior lifters, like Murakami, were preparing for the 2016 University Worlds, which were held just a week or two later in Mexico. Ryunosuke Mochida (not a junior) was also there training and we left a camera rolling on him but his session was not very interesting (just 130 C&J) so we left it out. For the most part, the facility was just housing the Junior team at the time so, outside of Mochida, the good senior lifters were not at this training camp.

The building housing this training center is a big sports facility for Japan's Olympic teams with weightlifting just being a small part. The facility also has dorms, meals, etc. While the facility is definitely not open for outsiders to visit or to train at without advanced permission (probably difficult to get permission to train, given that Japan uses the facility for their own athletes), you can see a bit more about it here: https://www.joc.or.jp/english/ntc/. Thank you very much to Fumiko Jonai for helping us to get in and get permission to film!

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