Football players with the Japan women’s team, currently in Sochi to take part in the Kuban Spring Women’s Football Tournament, decided to spend their free day touring the campus of the Russian International Olympic University. They visited the RIOU Information and Resource Centre and the exhibition of the Olympic artefacts, as well as talking to the RIOU students hailing from across the world. The meeting was very lively as there was much common ground: the Japanese footballers manage to combine competing with their university studies.    

“I am studying at the Department of Physical Education but in future I’d like to make a career related to sports, and football specifically. So, for me it was very intersting visiting a university that trains specialists for the sports industry. RIOU has a lot of Olympic artefacts and preserves the legacy of the Sochi Olympics”, said defender Shiori Ito, who has been playing football since the age of 7.  “It would be nice to come to Sochi again. I’d like to see the matches of the 2018 World Cup”, she added.