With this summer's Rio de Janeiro Olympics just around the corner, sports are currently very much in the spotlight.
Having been involved in sports for decades, both as an Olympic swimmer and administrator, 2016 is a key year for Daichi Suzuki, the inaugural commissioner of the newly launched Japan Sports Agency.
In an exclusive interview with The Japan Times last month, Suzuki, 49, said that August's Rio Games would be enormously important for Japanese athletes leading up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. He had already announced that Japan would aim to clinch a top-three spot in the medal standings at the Tokyo Games (Japan was sixth at the London Olympics with 38 medals).