June 20, 2010
The 61st Kyoto University and Tokyo University interscholastic boat race was held on the Seta River in Otsu City.
The opening ceremony was held amid pouring rain, though the rain stopped by the time the interscholastic race began. Heated battles took place, with President Hiroshi Matsumoto watching as a spectator.
In the four interscholastic races including the Women's Quadruple, the Kyoto University Rowing Club won three races and lost one, and of these, Kyoto University won the main interscholastic eight race (3200m) for the second year in a row.
For this boat race, the Kyoto University Rowing Club attempted for the first time to provide live coverage of the event using a WiMAX high-speed, high-volume data delivery system. The race was recorded from accompanying boats, bridges and banks, and the footage was sent from a computer to be displayed on four large screens in the spectator area above the boathouse. Spectators were able to see the live broadcast of the full race from start to finish, experiencing the thrill of boat racing in natural rivers with bends and currents, as well as the powerful rowing of the rowers, and they all went wild with cheers. Furthermore, the footage was distributed via the Internet to club alumni and family members of the rowers using Ustream, and the footage counted more than 200 accesses at the time of coverage.
This live coverage using WiMAX was realized with the unified efforts of current and past club members who conducted numerous experiments, and the cooperation and support of faculty members of the Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Dark Blue (an alumni association), related corporations and personnel.
An abridged version of the footage of this race can be viewed on the Kyoto University OCW ( http://ocw.kyoto-u.ac.jp/news/tyumoku/01/index-1(Japanese only)).
The full footage is available on the Kyoto University Rowing Club website ( http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~rowing/(Japanese only)).
 Kyoto University Eight powerfully rowing in front of many spectators |  Kyoto University Women's Quadruple (top) moving ahead of Tokyo University |
 Spectators, including students and alumni, watching the WiMAX footage attentively from the spectator area above the boat house |  Victory commemoration photo with President Matsumoto, Professor Maekawa (head of Rowing Club) and the Kyoto University Eight crew |