A competition called the ``Isu 1 Grand Prix'' was held in a shopping district in Nankan-cho, Kumamoto Prefecture, where people sat on office chairs with wheels and competed to see how far they could run within a time limit.
This event was planned by people from the local shopping district to create liveliness in the town, and 27 teams from the local area as well as from Tokyo and Fukuoka participated.
The race was held on a 200 meter long course set up with the streets of the shopping district closed to traffic. Teams of three people took turns sitting on office chairs with wheels, completing the race in two hours. We competed to see how far we ran.
The course had several hills and curves, and we saw some people fail to make the turns and fall.
The winning team was a team from a Kyoto transportation company that completed 111 laps and received 90 kg of locally produced rice and a new chair.
A man in his 20s from Kumamoto City who participated said, ``My feet hurt and it was tough until I got used to it, but by the second half I had so much fun that I forgot how tired I was.''
A woman in her 30s who came to support her family said, ``I was surprised that it was faster than I expected. It was fun.''