The national high school weightlifting competition opened in Kanazawa City, and athletes from Suzu City, which was affected by the Noto Peninsula Earthquake, participated in the opening ceremony.
Iida High School in Suzu City is known as a strong weightlifting team, and four athletes participated in the opening ceremony of the national competition held at the Kanazawa City Gymnasium on the 23rd.
At the ceremony, performances by the brass band of Iida High School, which was affected by the disaster, and the calligraphy club of Noto High School in Noto Town, were performed to express hopes for recovery, and the entire venue was reminded of the disaster-stricken areas.
At Iida High School, the practice field remained unusable until the 5th of this month due to the earthquake, and two players were unable to return to Suzu City due to damage to their boarding house, and were forced to evacuate to Tsubata Town, Ishikawa Prefecture. I continued practicing in high school.
Hajime Ikemoto, a second-year athlete competing in the men's 67kg class, said, ``I've grown as an athlete in Suzu, so I want to encourage the people of Suzu by seeing them working hard.''
Second-year athlete Ayaya Hamano, who will be competing in the men's 55 kg class, said, ``After the earthquake, I have been practicing in a different environment than my teammates, but I would be happy if we could set a good record at the tournament and climb onto the podium together.'' I was there.
The tournament will run until the 26th, and Iida High School players will compete on the 24th and 25th.