I'm going to the World Championships!

Hello everyone.
I am the assistant manager of t-Route.

Well, some of you may already know this from the post on X by Yudai Ito of Velvet Arts the other day, butNovember 15The manager and assistant manager of t-Route will be participating as part of the Japanese team in the Area Trout World Championships to be held in Bulgaria from

The store manager will be participating as a member of the team, and I will be participating as a reserve player.

As a reserve player, I won't be playing in the games unless Yudai catches a cold or the manager gets sick from eating his favorite oysters, so I'm personally doing my best as the tour coordinator, interpreter, and content creator for the tour, including videos 💪

Well, I'm sure there are many people who read X's post and this blog and are wondering, "A world championship...?"
(I'm sure many people are wondering, "Why are the store manager and assistant manager on the team?" lol)

So, I would like to write about how Japan came to participate in this World Championship, as well as some of the troubles and heartwarming stories that occurred before the decision was made.
I would be happy if reading this blog makes you more interested in the World Championships and makes you want to support the Japanese team even more.

It all started last October when one of our overseas customers asked us, "I want the Japanese team to compete in this year's World Championships. Is there anything we can do?"
The customer lives in Latvia!
When I received my first order, I was like, "Where...?" I thought (and immediately looked it up on Google Maps).

In fact, I was once introduced to an Italian customer who said, "My friend is the world championship winner."
The World Championships...? What's that? I asked, and was told that it's held somewhere in Europe every year.
At that time, I was just thinking, "Wow, Japan wasn't even on the list!"

I've heard about the World Championships a few times like that, but since English isn't their first language, I couldn't quite grasp the details and the conversation always ended with something like, "Huh, I see?"

However, this Latvian customer was quite fluent in English, and I was able to ask him a lot of questions for the first time!
As of 2023, this will be the third time the World Championships have been held. Approximately 13 countries participate every year. (By the way, 18 countries are scheduled to participate in 2024! That's increasing!) European countries take turns hosting the championships. A Japanese team has never participated. Everyone wants a Japanese team to participate.
After hearing this information, the store manager and assistant manager immediately said, "We want to go!!"

Every time I received an order from Latvia or Belarus, I couldn't help but wonder, "Area trout fishing exists in these countries too! I wonder what kind of lures they use!?" So I was determined to see the World Championships no matter what.
I also had a bit of an ulterior motive: I wanted to see Japanese anglers, the country where area trout fishing originated, compete in the World Championships and dominate against other countries!

So, first I contacted various people to find someone who would be willing to go with me.
We spoke passionately about the background of the World Championships and how much we wanted to go, but...

To put it simply, I was unable to get a good response from anyone... I'm completely powerless...

And so our dreams from last year were dashed...

A year has passed since then. I had completely forgotten about the World Championships,This year too, we received invitations from all over asking, "Are you coming to Japan?"

I'm happy.
You want to go, don't you?

But just when I was thinking that it probably wouldn't be possible, I mentioned this to Yudai during a casual chat, and lo and behold!!!


"Maybe I should go this year."


and!!!!!

Yudai was interested in going!!!

It was already the end of September, with only a month and a half until the World Championships.
There was no prospect of a member yet, but the undisputed champion Yudai Ito, a huge mountain, had moved! Does that mean there was a chance?! The store manager and assistant manager were immediately excited.

I later learned that Yudai had been invited several times by overseas artists, and that he had also been invited by Barivas.
Yudai is also interested in the World Championships and thought it might be a good idea to ask t-Route to act as coordinator and interpreter!
I am grateful for this.

From there, Yudai showed his usual drive to gather members.

We get positive responses from people who were not interested when we first asked them.
However, it's quite difficult to free up an entire week in November, a month and a half in advance...
I often get responses like, "If only you had told me sooner..."

The World Championships will have four people per team (plus one alternate), so we would like to gather three more people in addition to Yudai, but this is proving to be quite difficult.

Leaving the task of recruiting players entirely up to Yudai, Team t-Route will first work towards entering the tournament.

But this is quite a difficult problem...

First, I received the tournament rulebook and information about the organizing body from an Italian customer who invited me this year.
I immediately sent an email to the management company, but I didn't get a reply!
There's only a month and a half left and I haven't received a reply for four days, so I'm thinking this isn't going to work out and I'll ask the Latvian players who invited me last year.

Instead of sending me this year's rulebook, they sent me the tournament outline.
This allowed me to get some information about accommodation and fishing spots.

The tournament overview included contact information for Bulgaria, this year's host country, so I will send an email there as well.
But I haven't received a reply either!!

The tournament is organized by the International Sport Fishing Union, and you cannot enter unless you are a member of this union.
Every country has an organization that is a member of this union, and athletes recognized by that organization can enter the World Championships as representatives of Japan.
First of all, is Japan a member?

If you look at the official website, you'll see that Japan is on the list of member countries! So it's a member.
However, the organization he is a member of is one I have never heard of.
I can't find any information when I google it.
We decided that the only thing we could do was contact the organizing union or host country and ask for their contact information in Japan.

What makes me anxious is that even though I'm at this stage, Yudai is steadily gathering people.

With so many distinguished names being mentioned, it seems a bit wrong to say "I was not able to enter."
I spent each day in a state of tension, waiting for a reply from the management.

However, no matter how long I waited, there was no reply from either of them.

So now we are just under a week away from the deadline for entries.

I definitely don't want to come all this way and not be able to go!

So I decided to seek help no matter what.

First, we will consult with Italy and Latvia.
An Italian customer said, "I'll contact the Union through an Italian organization!"
Latvia even found a website with information about someone who appears to be connected to a Japanese affiliated organization!
Even though we couldn't find it...

The reason is that this person involved (hereafter referred to as Mr. K) currently lives overseas and his website is in English.
Since it is a Japanese organization, I only searched in Japanese, so I couldn't find it.

I've been asking around in various places to get in touch with Mr. K, but I can't find him anywhere.
I had no choice but to send an email to the inquiry email address on the website that Latvia had found for me.
I don't know whether to write it in Japanese or English, so I'm writing it in both!

At this point, you start to feel desperate and think, "Email is free, so just keep sending."

After sending the email, just wait.
I can only pray for a reply from any of the three parties.

Then, six days before the deadline, I received a reply from Mr. K!

The reply was very kind: "We support you. We'll help you enter."

But now there's trouble on our side.
The members who had originally said they could come were unable to make it, so we were unable to decide on team members.

The person who has been confirmed at this point is Arakawa from Valkein.
Thank you, Arakawa-san! Valkein is extremely popular overseas, and having Arakawa-san there will be a great help to us.
And Yudai.
So the remaining two slots will go to the manager and assistant manager of t-Route?
I could understand being the manager, but I was worried that the assistant manager would never be able to become a member of the Japanese national team...but then a savior appeared.
Suzuki from TIMON!
Surprisingly, Suzuki, who had initially turned us down, contacted us again to say that he could go.
These three make quite a powerful team!
Although this is a lenient judgment from a wife's perspective, the store manager is also good at fishing, so they make a good team.

Feeling a little excited, I told Mr. K about the team members and somehow managed to complete the entry.
October 11I managed to get in just in time on the last day...

Mr. K has experience competing in many matches in the past, and he advised us on what we should prepare, and when we didn't have enough information about the players, he directly negotiated with the union to enter them for us because it would be too late, and he supported us with all his might.
I'm looking forward to seeing the Japanese team in action. I've always been interested in area trout fishing, which is a highly competitive sport, so I'd like to learn more about it someday., and such warm words.
Every time I received an email, I would tear up, thinking how nice he was, even though it was something that would have absolutely no benefit to me.

My friends in Italy and Latvia contacted me every day asking, "Have you heard? Who's coming?" and I felt that they really wanted me to join the Japanese team.
When I told the team members that they had been selected, they were so excited they exclaimed "OH MY GOODNESS!!" and I thought it was really wonderful that such excitement could transcend national borders.

at a later dateWe received a reply from the Bulgarian management and have been in contact since then. They said, "I can't believe we have such members coming. Let us know if you need any help," and we felt the atmosphere was extremely welcoming.

Thus ended the hectic drama surrounding the entry, which the store manager described as "like a shogi puzzle," and the Japanese team's participation was successfully confirmed.

Yes, that's what you might be thinking after reading this long sentence.
In the end, all I wrote was one long sentence: "I have entered."
That's it. That's all there is to it, but I think it was clear that people all over the world are looking forward to seeing the Japanese team participate.

There is still much to prepare, but we hope to make this a memorable tournament for both Japanese and international players, so we ask for your continued support.

Next time I hope to write about the opening ceremony and official presentations.

The videos are also on a yearly hiatus.t-Route YouTube channelI hope to be able to give it a go, so please check it out!

Thank you for reading this long 🙇‍♀️