Vince had already missed out on selection in the Australian team for the Barcelona Olympics. This was not a new phenomenon. He had missed out on all Olympic selections since the Rome Olympics in 1960. Vince was not at all surprised when he wasn't selected for the Japanese team for the Barcelona Olympics, especially as he wasn't Japanese. It was therefore a double amazement that he was chosen to represent Negishi-chiku in the Ikebe-cho Community Sports Day. Not only had he not been born an Ikebean, but he was not even a resident of Ikebe. He lived in neighbouring Saedo.
Vince didn't know what strings Osamu had to pull to get him onto the team. Maybe, each chiku was allowed one foreigner, a little like the Japanese baseball teams or the Hawaiian invasion of sumo. This was not an uncommon phenomenon in professional sport anywhere in the world. Or perhaps, he had been adopted by the local community for his excellent display of omikoshi toting at the local festival. Whatever the reason, Vince was exceedingly proud to be included in the team.
He had sat on the side lines, two years earlier, during the local sports day and watched Negishi-chiku come in a dismal last. The following year, the whole business had been postponed because of Typhoon Keiho and after two further postponements due to rain, it was finally cancelled. It was traditionally held on Taiku no hi or Fitness Day, a national holiday commemorating the opening of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Companies organised sports within their own numbers and local communities had their own day.
The Ikebe-cho Sports Day was held at the Ikebe-cho Primary School and Vince's initial observations had suggested that it was just a fun day of silly team games, where everyone got a prize but no one really cared who won. The prizes were also very practical - rubbish bags, cooking oil, dishwashing liquid, bundles of soba noodles and the like. This was also Vince's idea of what sport should be all about. Through intense social observation, he had come to the conclusion that competition really served little constructive purpose in most endeavours in life and what was generally needed was cooperation. And here was a gleaming example of how sport could be community based around cooperative goals.
Vince had a glimmer of realisation that his vision of Ikebean altruism was not quite what it seemed when he found Osamu's own parents in their backyard throwing little pieces of foam rubber into a netted hoop. There was little doubt that the older Mr. Atsukawa was no Michael Jordan, but, in partnership with his wife, he had the air full of little foam pellets, some of which actually went into the basket. Osamu was standing nearby with a stopwatch and clocked them at two minutes before taking the hoop down and counting out 35 little bullets of foam.
"Isn't that one of the games in the Sports Day competition?" Vince asked casually.
Osamu blanched visibly and gulped, "Er ... yes."
"Well," Vince pursued the idea, "isn't it cheating to practise beforehand?"
Osamu didn't answer right away, but suggested that the two of them go for a jog. Vince couldn't think of a worse idea. Jogging, to him, was akin to shooting heroin. There was little or no point in doing it, but once you started you were hooked for life. Besides, he knew that Osamu would set off at a cracking pace and they'd both get back and not enjoy lunch.
Osamu's cracking pace didn't last long. He slowed at the corner and took the fifty steps up to the local shrine in twenty bounds. Vince trotted up more slowly and found Osamu sitting on a stone cornice waiting for him.
"It's like this," he murmured. "The last sports day that Negishi-chiku won was in 1965."
"So, you want to win this one?"
"Yes!"
"It's really that important?"
Osamu detected a note of skepticism in Vince's voice, "I think it is. There are many reasons why Negishi isn't winning the Sports Day. Other parts of Ikebe have gone ahead. There are big blocks of apartments, shops, factories and so forth. Negishi-chiku just has the same old farms we've always had with fewer farmers."
"And that makes it important?"
"Negishi knows it's going to lose, so half of the few people we have don't show up. Even my own children don't want to compete. None of their friends are going to. Their other friends are in other teams."
Vince was suffering from a hangover on Taiku-no-hi, but he dragged himself out of bed at 7 o'clock so that he'd be ready for the start of the full day's play and had competed in five events before the Atsukawas arrived. Vince was panting after the dribble and skip relay in which the male runners bounced a basketball while the female runners skipped rope for some fifty metres each. Vince's team had won and he had been presented with two bottles of dish washing liquid. He smiled at Osamu as he came across and offered him a sweaty hand.
"We're doing quite well. We've won three of the first five."
Osamu gritted his teeth, "You're playing for the wrong team. That's the Nakasato team. We're the Negishi team."
"Oh," Vince said, surprised. "I thought we were purple."
"We're pink."
"Oh!"
Vince looked over at the scoreboard and saw that Nagasato-chiku had 37 points and was in the lead while Negishi had a solid zero against their name. Vince walked over to the main Negishi tent. It was all but deserted. The large taiko drum stood idle with no children playing on it, the flag sagged. Vince scanned the tents of the other eight chiku. Each was bubbling with enthusiasm and activity. One man was waving the yellow Kogata-chiku flag backwards and forwards. There were children pounding out tattoos on each of the drums. The red Takayagato-chiku team was sounding a war chant in preparation for meeting Negishi in the tug-o'-war.
Vince suddenly realised that he was the one man on the Negishi team who could win Taiku-no-hi for them. He remembered the times when he'd always been last chosen for the team and now he had his chance to vindicate himself.
With superhuman strength and all of his 95 kilograms of weight behind the tug-o'-war, Vince pulled the pinks to victory against not only the red Takayagatos, but also the green Shimoyabunes, the maroon Kochis and the orange Hoshiyas.
He entered every event he could. He disguised himself with a shawl and threw his share of foam into the basket to help the older Atsumis. He even ran in two of the children's relays before someone realised that he wasn't an over-enthusiastic parent trying to encourage the littlies. He was disqualified from the three person centipede plank walk for being the only member of the Negishi team.
Connie arrived around this time to witness a new Vince. He was just leading Negishi to victory in the lemonade drinking relay. And she stayed to witness his victories in the obstacle course race, the backwards marathon, the grandmother piggy back and the tandem basketball carrying event. He was the only man to enter the women's dish drying marathon and was lauded by one and all for his third place in the event.
Connie shook her head, "I don't believe it."
Nozomi nodded, "I never knew that Vince was such a sportsman."
"Oh no, he's not. It's hard to get him on a bicycle ride down the river."
"But he's won about half of the events all but on his own."
"I'm just wondering ..."
"Wondering what?"
"I'm just wondering if he's on anabolic steroids!"
The second to last event was the all age relay. Negishi didn't have enough competitors to field a full team. By now, the scoreboard read Nakasato 145, Negishi 141. None of the other teams had passed 50. Vince had never been a sprint man. It usually took him 400 metres to reach top speed. At last, his hidden ability as a strategist came out. Instead of running just one slow 50 metres he would run all 16 legs of the race. This would also lessen the risk of dropping the baton.
At the end of the fourth change, he was in last place. But hitting full stride he started to move up through the field. First he passed the Kochi maroons, then the fastly fading Kamayabe whites and the Hoshiya oranges. On the eighth change, the Hashoyado blues dropped their baton and Vince moved into fifth spot before pegging down the Takigayato reds. Laps were running out, but Ikebe-cho was not prepared for a Murray Halberg finish. Halberg had won the gold medal in the 10,000 metres at the Rome Olympics in 1960 by starting his final withering sprint a full four laps before the finish. Lightning Vince streaked past the Shimoyabune greens and the Kogata yellows. Only the Nakasato purples were in front. The theme music from Chariots of Fire echoed in his head. He squeezed out one last burst of energy and edged in front of the last Nakasato runner. Into the clear around the final bend, the last 20 metres, 15 metres, 10 metres, 5 metres.
At three metres, a sudden pang hit Vince and he stumbled to the ground. The Nakasato man flew past him into the tape. Vince crawled the last 57 centimetres into second place, his leg aching with a cramp.
As they carried him back to the Negishi tent he leaned over to Osamu and asked, "If we win the last race, do we take the pennant?"
Osamu had made some quick mental calculations and replied, "The last race is the marathon. If we get the first five past the post and nobble the entire purple team, we'll win."
Knowing that he couldn't race himself, Vince muttered words of encouragement in English, "When the boys aren't getting the breaks just tell 'em to go out and win one more for the ..."
If the Negishi team had understood what he was saying, they might have been moved to win the marathon. As it was, they thought he was delirious, even if he did sound a little like Ronald Reagan, the United States president voted most likely to succeed as a Japanese politician. The Nakasato purples had no difficulty in taking the first five places in the marathon and nobbling the entire Negishi team.
If Connie had been impressed with the change into Super Vince, she was certainly not impressed with the change back again. Vince was a wreck who could hardly move for over a week later. Even so, Vince had won enough dish washing liquid, washing powder, plastic rubbish bags, boxes of tissues and cooking oil to last them until the next Taiku-no-hi.