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The IAAF is deeply saddened by the news that Atsushi Hoshino, a long-time athletics journalist and recipient of the IAAF World Journalist Award in 2010, died at his home in Tokyo on Monday (1). Hoshino was 93.
Born on 14 March 1926, Hoshino began his career in sports journalism in 1947 when he joined Tokyo’s Yomiuri Shimbun, a newspaper for which he would later become senior sports editor and work until 1996.
Hoshino served as President of the Japan Sports Press Association from 1974 to 1985, and continued as it executive advisor until recently, and remained on the public relations committee of the Japanese Athletics Federation (JAAF), a body which he first joined in 1954, until the early years of this decade.
Hoshino, who was a member of the IAAF Press Commission from 1992 to 2007, is best known internationally for his distinguished work as a Press Chief at major championships including the 1991 IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Tokyo, which achieved that year’s AIPS award for the Best Press Facilities. That distinction that was also awarded to the 2007 Osaka World Championships following Hoshino’s stewardship of the media services at that event.
The IAAF Press Delegate for the 1993 IAAF World Championships in Stuttgart, Hoshino’s media skills were also employed by the organisers of the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima and the following year’s World Student Games in Fukuoka. While concluding the decade as Press Chief of the 1999 World Indoor Championships in Maebashi, Hoshino also guided the media relations of the annual IAAF Grand Prix in Osaka from 1996 to 2007, and the 1997 IAAF Grand Prix Final in Fukuoka.
In his role as a press delegate of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Hoshino’s experience included four summer and one winter Olympic Games from 1988 to 2000.
He was honoured for his lifelong dedication to the sport in 2010 when he became the second recipient of the IAAF World Journalist Award. Inaugurated in 2009, the award was created on the recommendation of the IAAF Press Commission to note outstanding lifetime contributions in the field of athletics journalism.
Hoshino is survived by his wife Ayako, who was one of three women to represent Japan at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, where she competed in the 100m and long jump. At the Games, she set a national record in the 100m which lasted a decade.
IAAF
