Rugby World Cup, Not Soccer

When people hear "World Cup," most likely think of the FIFA World Cup in soccer. Indeed, soccer was the first sport to use the term "World Cup" for its world championship, and its World Cup is overwhelmingly more famous and commercially larger.

However, other sports also have World Cups. Rugby, for example, is one of them. The Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987, has been steadily expanding its scale and is now growing into the third-largest sporting event held every four years, after the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics.



Incidentally, it is scheduled so as not to overlap with other major events, taking place the year before the Summer Olympics and the year after the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup.

This year's FIFA World Cup just kicked off. This means the Rugby World Cup will be held in 2015, the following year. The host country is England, for the first time since 1991 (like soccer, the UK is divided into England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales).

Japan: First Stop for the Webb Ellis Cup

In May of this year, one year before the tournament, the Rugby World Cup Trophy Tour, featuring the championship trophy "Webb Ellis Cup," was held for the first time, visiting 15 countries worldwide. The tour aimed to build anticipation in countries with high rugby popularity and to raise awareness in countries where rugby is less known or popular. Land Rover and DHL are the worldwide partners for this tour. Land Rover handles the land transportation within each country, while DHL manages air travel.

It's not just because of the "British origin" connection, but Land Rover has long supported not only the Rugby World Cup but also rugby leagues and teams worldwide. For this tour, they are going beyond just providing vehicles; Land Rover's superior off-road capability will be showcased in "The Least Driven Path," taking the trophy to famous landmarks and "places no one has visited before" in the host countries and regions.



Japan was the first country visited by the Webb Ellis Cup. This is because Japan will host the Rugby World Cup in 2019, two tournaments from now. It will be the first time in Asia. On May 22nd, the trophy arrived at Narita Airport and was immediately transported to the vicinity of Mt. Fuji, which was registered as a World Heritage site last year.

We media also joined along the way, and although it was an unpaved and very rough road for regular passenger cars,Range Rover Serieswe reached a spot with a clear view of the sacred Mt. Fuji, traversing a mountain path that posed no challenge for the Discovery 4 and Range Rover Series.

Qualified for the Rugby World Cup for the 8th Consecutive Time

After that, the group moved to Saiko Iyashi no Sato Nenba, a village with traditional thatched-roof houses. Daisuke Ohata, a former Japan national rugby player, who is also an ambassador for the Rugby World Cup 2019 and a brand ambassador for Land Rover, held a rugby clinic for local elementary school children on a nearby field and interacted with them.

Amidst the contrast between the traditional houses reminiscent of Japanese folk tales and the latest Land Rover vehicles, Ohata said, "The generation that watched us play is now representing the country. And the children watching the current national team will be the ones playing in the 2019 Japan tournament. Rugby is a sport where people pass the ball, but I believe it also connects generations." He expressed his hopes for the World Cup to be held in Japan five years later.



Regarding Land Rover's products, he commented, "I drove them, including on rough roads, and felt that these are cars where you can achieve top performance just by letting yourself be driven. I heard it's a traditional brand, but it seems to incorporate the latest technology of each era, so perhaps preserving tradition means continuously evolving." Even in a short test drive, he grasped the essential appeal of Land Rover.



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