Japan National Training Center (NTC) opens

New training center fuels dreams of gold@asahi

The NTC's total cost, including expenses to purchase the land site, was about 37.4 billion yen, according to the sports ministry.

The indoor training facility can be used by athletes in up to 10 sports, from gymnastics and judo to table tennis.

The judo facility is twice the size of the famed Kodokan, the headquarters of judo in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward. The NTC facility has about 1,000 tatami mats.

Each practice facility has video cameras in place so athletes and coaches can later review their techniques.

The tennis courts use the same surfaces in stadiums hosting the U.S. and French Opens.

The outdoor training facility, featuring a 400-meter track, was completed in January 2007.

The JOC will operate an elite academy to foster young athletes into those capable of competing at the international level.

Table tennis and wrestling will join the academy project from April.

Six table tennis players and three wrestlers, all still in junior high school, will live and train at the NTC while attending a nearby school.

plan for Singapore Sports Hub

Singapore Sports Hub Consortium, Led By Dragages Singapore Pte Ltd, Selected as Preferred Bidder For Sports Hub Project@SSC

Located on a 35ha site in Kallang, the Sports Hub will include the following facilities:
• A new 55,000-capacity National Stadium with a retractable roof;
• A 6,000-capacity indoor Aquatic Centre that meets world tournament standards;
• A 3,000-capacity multi-purpose arena which will be scalable and flexible in layout;
• 41,000 sq m of commercial space
• A Water Sports Centre
• The existing 12,000-capacity Singapore Indoor Stadium; and
• Supporting leisure and commercial developments

With its world-class facilities, the Sports Hub will be the Centre for Singapore's elite athletes and high performance management as well as an ideal location for sports and entertainment events, sports administration, and sports and recreation businesses.

It will help to create a critical mass of international, regional and local sports federations and associations, sports medicine and sports science service providers, sports related training and education service providers, sports companies' sales and marketing headquarters, and retail outlets.

Playing sports, Wii Sports or XBOX 360 for energy expenditure

Comparison of energy expenditure in adolescents when playing new generation and sedentary computer games: cross sectional study@pubmed

An interesting study of Liverpool John Moores University was conducted to compare the energy expenditure of adolescents when playing sedentary (XBOX 360) and new generation active computer games (Wii Sports).

Mean (standard deviation) predicted energy expenditure when playing Wii Sports bowling (190.6 (22.2) kJ/kg/min), tennis (202.5 (31.5) kJ/kg/min), and boxing (198.1 (33.9) kJ/kg/min) was significantly greater than when playing sedentary games XBOX 360 (125.5 (13.7) kJ/kg/min) (P<0.001).

However,
the energy used when playing active Wii Sports games was not of high enough intensity to contribute towards the recommended daily amount of exercise in children.