This year's "Challenge Day" was held on May 26. 1,425,366 residents of 117 municipalities participated, making the turnout the largest ever.

Challenge Day is an event that was first started in Canada. On the last Wednesday in May, municipalities compete with each other to get the highest number of residents taking part in sports. This year, about 31.96 million people from twenty five countries took part.

In Japan, the Sasakawa Sports Foundation (Chairman Kiyoko Ono) has directed the event since 1993, making 2010 the eighteenth year.

An Eco-Walk, in which participants pick up trash while walking

Challenge Day, the aim is to raise health awareness through sport. Each opponent is selected according to area’s population size (almost the same volume), the residents must exercise for more than fifteen minutes between midnight to nine p.m. on the day and compete in the participation rate. A defeated local government flies the winner’s flag at the main pole of government building for a week subject to the rule.

Croquet tournament in a gym

This year, 117 communities took part from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

Two municipalities received Challenge Prizes for high participation rates: 99.4% of Higashi village, Okinawa and 102.2% of Kuboizumi cho, Saga. (people who take part twice are counted twice, and visitors from out of town who participate are also counted, sometimes leading to rates in excess of 100%)

Best New Community Prizes were given to Kai City of Yamanashi Prefecture (81.3%) and Higashi Oita District of Oita Prefecture(73.2%).

Children jump rope

Mayumi Narita, a swimmer who has won 15 gold medals at the Paralympics, took part as a Challenge Day ambassador. She spoke to 340 students at a junior high school gymnasium, on the topic “Seek your Potential.” Another ambassador, sportscaster Kenta Aoshima, observed an 8,000-person walking event in which participants started from five locations in town and walked to the town hall, covering distances of 8.2 to 22.7 kilometers.

Aoshima attended each course by car, and cheered on the participants of a youth baseball tournament, as well as a "Rope Jump X-Games.”