— ★ FIRST OFFICIAL EDITION

Yokohama 2025

In August 2025, Yokohama hosts the first official edition of TICAD Games — Budō, innovation and culture converging alongside TICAD 9.

★ OFFICIAL TICAD PARTNER PROJECTRecognized as a Partner Project of TICAD.

ORGANISED BY

Founding organisations

— ★ OFFICIAL TICAD PARTNER PROJECT

P2P

People to People

Opening ceremony — Yokohama 2025

Pillars

Disciplines

Delegations

Participants

First Official Edition — Yokohama 2025

In August 2025, Yokohama hosted the first official edition of the TICAD Games, a landmark event born from the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). The Games featured an exciting mix of sports competitions, bringing together athletes and youth from Africa, Japan and TICAD Partner countries.

Alongside the action, the Innovation Symposium spotlit cutting-edge ideas in technology, sustainability, and education, led by young leaders and visionaries.

Evenings came alive with cultural performances, where African and Japanese traditions met on stage in a vibrant celebration of creativity and shared heritage.

By uniting sport, innovation, and culture, TICAD Games 2025 showcased the power of collaboration to inspire the next generation and strengthen ties between Africa and Japan.

DISCIPLINES

Kendō
Symposium
Taiko

— PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

Around the tournament.

Yokohama 2025 was more than a competition. The week unfolded as a wider People-to-People programme — training across the dōjō circuits of Tokyo and Yokohama, an academic conversation on the codes of Bushidō, and the percussive opening of Taiko.

— KENDŌ

Training Camp · Tokyo & Yokohama

Visiting delegations joined open practices and dōjō exchanges across Tokyo and Yokohama in the days surrounding the tournament — a rare chance to train shoulder-to-shoulder with senior Japanese practitioners and senseis, deepening technique, etiquette, and the bonds that the tournament alone could not.

— SYMPOSIUM

On Bushidō.

A dedicated symposium opened the philosophical dimension of the Games — a roundtable on Bushidō, the way of the warrior, and its modern echoes across diplomacy, education, and African–Japanese cooperation. Speakers from Japan and TICAD Partner countries traced how chivalrous conduct in the dōjō translates to public life.

— CULTURE

Taiko Performance.

The festival came alive with Taiko — the thunder of Japanese drums setting the tempo for the opening and closing moments of the Games. A communal heartbeat that gathered athletes, families, and the public into the same single rhythm.

— SYMPOSIUM · IN PICTURES

On Bushidō, in conversation.

Frames from the Bushidō symposium — the room, the speakers, and the audience that gathered to listen.

TICAD Games Symposium 2025 — sign — The sign

Speaker addressing the symposium — Yokohama 2025 — The speech

Symposium attendees gathered — Yokohama 2025 — The room

— TOURNAMENT RESULTS

Yokohama 2025 podiums.

The competition unfolded across two individual brackets — women's and men's — followed by a Grand Final between the gender champions. Brackets are hosted on Challonge.