So do the runners such as Sharp, who feel, with good reason, that they are competing at an unfair disadvantage.
At the same time, formerly world-leading companies such as Sharp, Sony and Panasonic are in crisis, unable to match competition from South Korea, China and elsewhere.
Some of those, such as sharp increases in single bus fares and weekly bus passes, are staggering: a single bus fare by Oyster has increased by 44%.
There are other powerful Japanese producers, such as Sharp and Matsushita Electric, whose brands include Panasonic, that the South Korean company must watch out for.
Super-sharp TVsExpect plenty of action here, with firms such as Sharp, LG Electronics and others showing off very impressive and very pricey high-end televisions.
So it's no surprise that athletes such as Sharp, who have worked just as hard and sacrificed just as much, may feel frustrated and denied even though they weren't, and how, in anger, grace failed them.
So far, Nippon Foundry has only attracted this sort of upmarket business from the smaller Japanese chip companies, such as Sharp and Sony.As it happens, however, Mr Sakamoto has a proposition for Japan's semiconductor dinosaurs.
By cherry picking one form of advantage while being unprepared to recognise the myriad ways in which they themselves are privileged, athletes such as Sharp have chosen to portray themselves as victims – despite all the benefits of birth they have enjoyed.
Jubilation at the landslide win of Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party LDPP) on December 16th raised share prices to the rafters.The markets were celebrating a slide in the yen, which may make ailing Japanese exporters such as Sharp, an electronics firm, more competitive.
The Nomura Research Institute (NRI), a consultancy, coined the term "the Galapagos effect" to describe how mobile-phone companies such as Sharp developed brilliant 3G technologies that are ubiquitous in Japan but had no impact overseas, where the mobile ecosystem is different.
Nevertheless, Tisci's autumn-winter ready-to-wear designs, such as sharp trouser suits—executed for men and women in red, leopard print, and black as well as Alpine print knitwear, proved sought-after and were also swiftly copied by fast-fashion chains such as Topshop and BCBG, which created inexpensive mass-produced variations.
