Why Ai Takahashi and Fuji TV announcer Sakuma’s “exclusive chatting time” at the Paris Olympics drew a flood of criticism.
The men’s volleyball team of Japan, which fought fiercely for its first gold medal in 52 years since the Munich Olympics, ended the Paris Olympics with a match against Italy on August 5.
Japan played a great match against a very strong team that had qualified in first place, winning two sets in a row, and although Italy fought back from the third set onward and regrettably suffered a setback, it was a great match that proved Japan’s volleyball is at the world level,” said a reporter from a national newspaper covering the event.
Immediately after the defeat, captain Yuki Ishikawa (28) and the rest of the national team shed tears of regret in front of the crowd and bid farewell to coach Philippe Blanc (64), who will retire at the end of this tournament. In the South Arena in Paris, the venue of the decisive match, there was a person who was sobbing harder than the members of the national team.
She is Minami Sakuma, 26, an analyst at Fuji Television Network. She has long experience as a sportscaster, and is the main anchor of the Sunday edition of the Fuji-affiliated sports program “Suport! She was chosen to anchor the Paris Olympics partly because she is the main anchor for the Sunday edition. She was also there to cover all four men’s volleyball matches. After the Italy game, she was crying in the mixed zone. She must have been so devoted to the men’s volleyball team.
During the period, Sakuma covered judo, gymnastics, and various other sports, impressing reporters from both TV and newspapers with his enthusiastic work and wealth of knowledge. However, a number of reporters at the ballet scene voiced their dissatisfaction with Sakuma. Why was this?
She was “keeping Ai Takahashi (22) to herself” during the interviews for the three matches in the preliminary round. Ai Takahashi is a star in the men’s volleyball world along with Ishikawa and Yuji Nishida (24). The media is inundated with them, so each reporter is trying to get the story out fairly so that more people will be informed, and it would be a problem if they were monopolized…” (A sports newspaper reporter covering men’s volleyball)
After the match, the players are interviewed in the mixed zone in the order of Japanese TV stations, foreign media, and Japanese newspapers and other print media. Sakuma belongs to the TV station where he can be interviewed the earliest. ……
