Latest news with #Ogura
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Ai Ogura uncertain for MotoGP British GP after Friday fall
Trackhouse Aprilia rider Ai Ogura is in doubt for the rest of the British Grand Prix weekend following a crash on the opening day of action at Silverstone. The Japanese rookie injured his right knee after crashing in FP1 on Friday morning. This led to him missing practice in the afternoon, as his race against time to be fit for Saturday began. Advertisement 'I was running not so fast on the second run,' explained Ogura. 'I was on my way to improve but… wrong timing, the wrong amount of push and I crashed. 'After that my right knee [did not feel right] and we decided to skip practice this afternoon. Hopefully, overnight, my knee will get better and I hope to be fit for tomorrow. 'For now, I will just do what I can and see what happens with my body. Hopefully, it's going to be better [tomorrow].' The incident was Ogura's sixth fall of the season, counting all sessions and races. That is approximately in line with the MotoGP field average. Ai Ogura, Trackhouse Racing Ai Ogura, Trackhouse Racing Marc Fleury Marc Fleury Advertisement Ogura made a sensational start to the season, qualifying on the second row for the Thailand Grand Prix, claiming fourth in the sprint and finishing the grand prix fifth. But things have become more difficult since then. At the second round in Argentina, he raced strongly but was disqualified for a software technicality. However, he has finished every race to date and still managed to make the top 10 in three of the last four grands prix. Qualifying has proven more difficult than Thailand suggested, with Ogura having made Q2 only once since the 2025 opener. Missing practice means Ogura is once again condemned to Q1 on Saturday – should he be fit to ride at all, that is. Read Also: Franco Morbidelli suffers second grid penalty of MotoGP 2025 at British GP To read more articles visit our website.
The Mainichi
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Mainichi
Rock legend Patti Smith says 'people have the power' in anti-nuke talk with Japan hibakusha
HIROSHIMA -- "The people have the power," U.S. punk rock legend Patti Smith called out to a crowd of some 250 people in Hiroshima, the western Japan city where the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945. Smith, currently in Japan for the "Correspondences" live performance project in collaboration with Soundwalk Collective, stopped by Hiroshima on April 28. She joined a dialogue session with 87-year-old "hibakusha," or A-bomb survivor, Keiko Ogura in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. After delivering a spoken word version of her 1988 single "People Have the Power," Smith remarked, "Let's rise up together in great numbers against injustice, war, and any inhumanity against humanity." During the dialogue, Ogura detailed her experience of surviving the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of Hiroshima as an 8-year-old girl. At the time, she was near her home, which was 2.4 kilometers, or 1.5 miles, from the hypocenter. A blinding flash of light was followed by an enormous blast, and Ogura said she was beaten against the road, becoming unconscious. Years later, she was shocked to see people around her pass away due to what was suspected to be radiation-induced diseases. "Without any scars or burns, they died, and many survivors suffer and deal with fear even now," she said. Smith, 78, shared memories of her deceased father, who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II, and was sent to the Philippines and New Guinea. "When the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my father cried. When I was little, he explained to me about the bomb and the terrible destruction. I wanted to come here and ask for forgiveness, on behalf of my father," Smith said. Ogura expressed hibakusha's determination to keep speaking out to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons, saying their pledge is contained in the inscription on the cenotaph for A-bomb victims in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The inscription reads, "Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil." "Nuclear weapons were built not to defend, only to destroy," Smith said. Pointing to Ogura, she continued, "This 8-year-old girl did not seek vengeance, but peace. She rises up and tries to spread love and a peaceful message globally, and that's what we must all do." After the talk, Smith recited "People Have the Power," which has become an anthem for democratic movements around the world. During a Q&A session, an audience member, who said they had been joining nightly protests before the Atomic Bomb Dome in the peace park to show solidarity with Palestinians, asked what people can do to take action toward a better world. Referring to the Israeli military's invasion into Gaza, Smith said, "This is not war, but destruction on people." Quoting a line from her song -- "I believe everything we dream can come to pass through our union" -- Smith insisted, "We all want simple human things, and we have to fight for them together. Not just for one country, or one child, but all children, all countries, all people." "It's the people who can vote and take to the streets. We can't stop fighting, we can't stop praying, we can't stop joining together. That is our great hope, to love and to unify." Hideaki Nishimura, a 56-year-old longtime fan of Smith, said, "I felt a rush of excitement listening to the poem. I also want to do my part by listening to firsthand experiences of war, and learn more about war from all perspectives." Smith had last visited Hiroshima in 2013, during her Japan tour, where she included a charity drive to raise money for children who lost their parents in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. (By Chinami Takeichi, Hiroshima Bureau)
New York Times
22-04-2025
- General
- New York Times
The Funky, Fermented Roots of Japanese Cuisine
LUNCH IS ALL pickles at Kintame, a Kyoto shop that's made tsukemono ('pickled things') since 1879. Vegetables in tiny, tidy heaps appear on a radish-shaped plate, arranged like stops on a clock: white turnip cut thin as vellum, still juicy from a bath of rice vinegar and kelp; eggplant stained rose by purple shiso, mint-bright with smacks of cinnamon bark and cooling licorice; a knot of wild mustard greens, darkly tender and tingly, like a breath at the back of the neck. The country that changed modern culture and design, from A to Z Elsewhere these would be mere ornaments to a meal, stray bites to rouse the palate or brace it for the next course. Showcased here, as points of focus, they recalibrate your thinking. You become conscious of how these flavors — sourness, tang, funk and umami — run like a baseline through Japanese cuisine. Such are the yields of fermentation, here coming from the rice vinegar in the pickles, but present throughout the Japanese pantry in shoyu, miso, mirin and sake, all made by inoculating rice or soy beans with spores of koji (Aspergillus oryzae). Any soup or stew relies on dashi, a stock of kombu and katsuobushi — bonito that has been simmered, smoked, sun dried, repeatedly coated with mold and sun dried again until, almost purged of moisture, it clacks like wood when struck, then gets shaved into delicate curls that bring a briny earthiness, surf and turf in one. Fermentation was one of our earliest tools of survival, a way to preserve food from rot and eke out supplies in winter; some anthropologists have theorized that a lust for beer, a fermented beverage, drove Neolithic humans to start planting barley and build settlements around 10,000 years ago, which would make fermentation the foundation of civilization as we know it. Today 'everyone uses the refrigerator,' says Hiraku Ogura, 41, who runs Hakko Department, a Tokyo grocery store and cafe that specializes in ferments. Still we crave this flavor of arrested time, of something left to languish in the dark, perhaps because the taste of fermentation goes back to our first understanding of what taste is. FERMENTATION ISN'T UNIQUE to Japan, but arguably no other nation has so fully committed to it. An archipelago nearly 2,500 miles north of the Equator, Japan lacks the climate to grow the kind of rich, vivid spices abundant in South and Southeast Asia, and its isolation, by geography and by choice, kept it on the margins of the spice trade. For flavor it had to look within, to the harvest of its fields and the surrounding sea. Fermentation turns a restricted set of ingredients into a bounty. Ogura, an anthropologist by training, has traveled across the country documenting the microbiomes and climatic conditions that shape local ferments. His ancestors on the island of Kyushu, for example, were whale hunters who thought of their prey not as their victim or mere food but as a kind of god. Out of reverence for the animal, they created a pickle from its bones and cartilage to ensure no part was wasted. Explore More Read the editor's letter here. Take a closer look at the covers. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Ai Ogura and how MotoGP's American dream could lie in Japanese hands
The stars of MotoGP, motorcycle racing's equivalent to Formula One, tend to start young – most top riders don a helmet and straddle a little motorbike almost as soon as they can walk. Often, they are inspired by a racing dad or older brother, but eye-catching Japanese rookie star Ai Ogura had an unusual inspiration: his big sister, Karen. 'Well, my sister started earlier than me. She started with a pocket bike when she was three,' Ogura tells CNN Sports. 'So in between us, there's two years' difference. 'When I was small, I was not interested in MotoGP or other races, I mean, to watch on the TV, so I didn't have idols like everybody, like Valentino (Rossi) as my idol, or (Casey) Stoner, or (Jorge) Lorenzo, or something like that. So, my sister was the one that I was looking up to.' Ogura grew up in Kiyose, a suburb in Tokyo's commuter belt. His father raced bikes at an amateur level, so he and his family devoted much of their free time to racing. 'Every weekend, me and my sister, and my father, my mother, used to go to the circuit and we were just a normal family,' Ogura says. Perhaps inevitably, a young Ai began taking to the track himself with sister Karen. '(We raced together) a lot, especially in the pocket bike time. And we were in the same class, and she always beat me. It's not a good memory for me, but for her, yes,' the now 24-year-old laughs. Karen Ogura went on to enjoy success as a professional rider, eventually racing in Moto America in the United States. Ai instead found his opportunity in the feeder classes of MotoGP, beginning with the Asia Talent Cup, graduating to the Red Bull Rookies Cup, then into Moto3 and Moto2. It was in that penultimate class of racing that Ogura caught the attention of a somewhat unlikely top-flight suitor. When storied NASCAR franchise Trackhouse announced it was rolling onto the MotoGP grid just weeks before the start of the 2024 season, its last-minute arrival surprised many. Backed by rapper Pitbull, and with bikes decked in boldly patriotic Stars & Stripes livery, the team looked set to bring All-American-style razzmatazz to motorcycle racing's international premier class. After a respectable but unspectacular first season, many expected the Nashville-based organization to double down on its American identity and bring promising Californian rider Joe Roberts into its stable for 2025. But Justin Marks, the former NASCAR racer who heads up Trackhouse, was instead keen to scan the field. 'We wanted to bring in somebody that we could build, that could grow with the team and that we could be with for a long time,' Marks tells CNN. 'So, when we were looking at the rookies, you know, there was a lot of opportunity in Moto2, there's just so much talent, there's not really an outlier that's like the one guy.' Ogura appeared to have the kind of talent and temperament that would allow him to thrive in the intensely demanding MotoGP class, but Davide Brivio, the veteran Trackhouse Team Principal, admits it was a gamble. 'You kind of make a bet, you know, because you choose a guy that is in Moto2, there's no chance to test in MotoGP. You cannot make any assessment. You just have to rely on potential, you know? In future potential,' the Italian explains to CNN Sports. 'And that's what we did with Ai. We thought he was talented. We thought that he had a riding style close to MotoGP, or potentially becoming a MotoGP style. Also, we really liked his approach last year, sometimes in difficulty, some bad starts, to keep recovering, resilience, and fighting.' Ogura signed for Trackhouse mid-way through the 2024 season, then promptly went on to win the Moto2 title, apparently vindicating the team's decision. Just as importantly, Brivio says, Ogura's apparent calm demeanor turned out to be a genuine cornerstone of his personality. 'Of course, we found out this later again. It's a bet – you don't know the potential, but also in reality, you don't know the person or what their approach is,' Brivio says. 'When you live in the same garage, you spend time in the garage, and then you talk to the crew chief, to the technician, then you figure out the characteristics of a rider, and we found out he's very, yes, very calm. He wants to learn, but step by step, taking the right time to understand.' Marks says the choice of a Japanese rider rather than an American to join Spaniard Raúl Fernández, who occupies the other half of the Trackhouse garage, was also a conscious nod to the brand's international ambitions. 'There are two lines of thought: one is, you know, do we lean so far into the American idea of our team, do we just stack it with Americans and make it that above everything else? Or is the MotoGP Trackhouse team really the international growth vector for the Trackhouse brand?' the 44 year-old explains. 'Ultimately what we landed on, while we want to lean into the fact that we're an American team and celebrate that, this truly is the function of the company that expands globally and internationally.' The step up from Moto2 bikes to the snarling, high-tech, vividly rapid and often unforgiving beasts of MotoGP can be a big one, but Ogura barely seemed to blink. In his debut race, the 2025 season opener at a sweltering Chang International Circuit in Thailand, he qualified in fifth place, going on to wrestle his Aprilia RS-GP25 to fourth in the Sprint race and fifth in the main Grand Prix contest. 'To me, (moving up to MotoGP) is just the same as other categories. When I stepped up from the junior categories to Moto3, and from Moto3 to Moto2, for me it's a really similar step,' says Ogura. 'Of course, the riders I face this year, everybody is a world champion, so for this, it is a little bit different, but for the bike, there's not so much difference because to arrive, 'Okay fast,' let's say, is quite easy. 'But from there, to find another five- or six-tenths is always a problem, and that's what I had mostly in Moto2, so for me what I'm doing is really similar, just get there, and from there just kill the problems one by one and reach the top guys.' Ogura does concede, however, that his first time among his new MotoGP rivals was a 'pinch-me' moment. 'The first few days' official testing in Sepang was something special for me,' he smiles again. 'When I see Marc (Márquez) and other big names, for me it was kind of an emotional moment because I share the track with all those great riders.' But his thoughts quickly turned to competition. 'Now, it's just – I'm one of the MotoGP riders, and I have to be better than all the other riders. So now I'm a bit more calm on the track. But the first few days were a little bit like – to beat Marc Márquez, there's no way, but now things start to be a little bit more realistic.' Ogura followed up his striking opening MotoGP weekend with an eighth place in the Argentina MotoGP before being disqualified for a technical irregularity. At a chaotic MotoGP of the Americas in Austin, he managed a highly respectable ninth in both Sprint and GP. In the paddock at Austin, Japanese MotoGP fan Ippei Suzuki was sporting an Ogura t-shirt and spoke excitedly about the rookie's prospects. 'He's a very quick guy. I'm following other Japanese riders too, but he is outstanding,' he says to CNN. 'Most Japanese riders are supported by Japanese bike makers, but Ai went out from Honda and went into Aprilia, and that is one promising thing, he no longer needs support from a Japanese bike maker, so that for me is I think outstanding.' For Trackhouse, the success of their Japanese rookie has been a pleasant surprise, but both Brivio and Marks underline that this is a long-term project. Learning its way into its second season in MotoGP, the team's ambitions for Ogura and Fernández this season lie in incremental progress. A rather more abrupt change for the organization came in February, when Pitbull announced his departure from the project on social media. But Marks sees a bright future for both his team and the sport of MotoGP in the United States, especially if Formula One owner Liberty Media's deal to take over MotoGP is finally ratified. 'There's a huge growth opportunity in the US. I think the timing is great, that an American media company wants to come in and own it, learn it, and really grow it in the United States and grow it and develop it globally,' Marks says. 'I hope that they can get it done, because I think that we can be a big part of their strategy and growing it in the US. We've already got a lot of NASCAR fans watching MotoGP for the first time, and I think, as they get the Liberty deal done, we can have a really close relationship with Liberty and really work with them growing in the United States from a marketing standpoint, a competition standpoint, fan engagement, all that kind of stuff.' As for Ogura's own home country, the young rider from Tokyo hopes he and his compatriots can raise the profile of MotoGP once more in the birthplace of some of the sport's most iconic manufacturers. 'There are so many good Japanese motorcyclists now, so maybe it's time to do something,' Ogura says. 'I need a better result to wake the Japanese fans,' he smiles.
CNN
05-04-2025
- Automotive
- CNN
Ai Ogura and how MotoGP's American dream could lie in Japanese hands
The stars of MotoGP, motorcycle racing's equivalent to Formula One, tend to start young – most top riders don a helmet and straddle a little motorbike almost as soon as they can walk. Often, they are inspired by a racing dad or older brother, but eye-catching Japanese rookie star Ai Ogura had an unusual inspiration: his big sister, Karen. 'Well, my sister started earlier than me. She started with a pocket bike when she was three,' Ogura tells CNN Sports. 'So in between us, there's two years' difference. 'When I was small, I was not interested in MotoGP or other races, I mean, to watch on the TV, so I didn't have idols like everybody, like Valentino (Rossi) as my idol, or (Casey) Stoner, or (Jorge) Lorenzo, or something like that. So, my sister was the one that I was looking up to.' Ogura grew up in Kiyose, a suburb in Tokyo's commuter belt. His father raced bikes at an amateur level, so he and his family devoted much of their free time to racing. 'Every weekend, me and my sister, and my father, my mother, used to go to the circuit and we were just a normal family,' Ogura says. Perhaps inevitably, a young Ai began taking to the track himself with sister Karen. '(We raced together) a lot, especially in the pocket bike time. And we were in the same class, and she always beat me. It's not a good memory for me, but for her, yes,' the now 24-year-old laughs. Karen Ogura went on to enjoy success as a professional rider, eventually racing in Moto America in the United States. Ai instead found his opportunity in the feeder classes of MotoGP, beginning with the Asia Talent Cup, graduating to the Red Bull Rookies Cup, then into Moto3 and Moto2. It was in that penultimate class of racing that Ogura caught the attention of a somewhat unlikely top-flight suitor. When storied NASCAR franchise Trackhouse announced it was rolling onto the MotoGP grid just weeks before the start of the 2024 season, its last-minute arrival surprised many. Backed by rapper Pitbull, and with bikes decked in boldly patriotic Stars & Stripes livery, the team looked set to bring All-American-style razzmatazz to motorcycle racing's international premier class. After a respectable but unspectacular first season, many expected the Nashville-based organization to double down on its American identity and bring promising Californian rider Joe Roberts into its stable for 2025. But Justin Marks, the former NASCAR racer who heads up Trackhouse, was instead keen to scan the field. 'We wanted to bring in somebody that we could build, that could grow with the team and that we could be with for a long time,' Marks tells CNN. 'So, when we were looking at the rookies, you know, there was a lot of opportunity in Moto2, there's just so much talent, there's not really an outlier that's like the one guy.' Ogura appeared to have the kind of talent and temperament that would allow him to thrive in the intensely demanding MotoGP class, but Davide Brivio, the veteran Trackhouse Team Principal, admits it was a gamble. 'You kind of make a bet, you know, because you choose a guy that is in Moto2, there's no chance to test in MotoGP. You cannot make any assessment. You just have to rely on potential, you know? In future potential,' the Italian explains to CNN Sports. 'And that's what we did with Ai. We thought he was talented. We thought that he had a riding style close to MotoGP, or potentially becoming a MotoGP style. Also, we really liked his approach last year, sometimes in difficulty, some bad starts, to keep recovering, resilience, and fighting.' Ogura signed for Trackhouse mid-way through the 2024 season, then promptly went on to win the Moto2 title, apparently vindicating the team's decision. Just as importantly, Brivio says, Ogura's apparent calm demeanor turned out to be a genuine cornerstone of his personality. 'Of course, we found out this later again. It's a bet – you don't know the potential, but also in reality, you don't know the person or what their approach is,' Brivio says. 'When you live in the same garage, you spend time in the garage, and then you talk to the crew chief, to the technician, then you figure out the characteristics of a rider, and we found out he's very, yes, very calm. He wants to learn, but step by step, taking the right time to understand.' Marks says the choice of a Japanese rider rather than an American to join Spaniard Raúl Fernández, who occupies the other half of the Trackhouse garage, was also a conscious nod to the brand's international ambitions. 'There are two lines of thought: one is, you know, do we lean so far into the American idea of our team, do we just stack it with Americans and make it that above everything else? Or is the MotoGP Trackhouse team really the international growth vector for the Trackhouse brand?' the 44 year-old explains. 'Ultimately what we landed on, while we want to lean into the fact that we're an American team and celebrate that, this truly is the function of the company that expands globally and internationally.' The step up from Moto2 bikes to the snarling, high-tech, vividly rapid and often unforgiving beasts of MotoGP can be a big one, but Ogura barely seemed to blink. In his debut race, the 2025 season opener at a sweltering Chang International Circuit in Thailand, he qualified in fifth place, going on to wrestle his Aprilia RS-GP25 to fourth in the Sprint race and fifth in the main Grand Prix contest. 'To me, (moving up to MotoGP) is just the same as other categories. When I stepped up from the junior categories to Moto3, and from Moto3 to Moto2, for me it's a really similar step,' says Ogura. 'Of course, the riders I face this year, everybody is a world champion, so for this, it is a little bit different, but for the bike, there's not so much difference because to arrive, 'Okay fast,' let's say, is quite easy. 'But from there, to find another five- or six-tenths is always a problem, and that's what I had mostly in Moto2, so for me what I'm doing is really similar, just get there, and from there just kill the problems one by one and reach the top guys.' Ogura does concede, however, that his first time among his new MotoGP rivals was a 'pinch-me' moment. 'The first few days' official testing in Sepang was something special for me,' he smiles again. 'When I see Marc (Márquez) and other big names, for me it was kind of an emotional moment because I share the track with all those great riders.' But his thoughts quickly turned to competition. 'Now, it's just – I'm one of the MotoGP riders, and I have to be better than all the other riders. So now I'm a bit more calm on the track. But the first few days were a little bit like – to beat Marc Márquez, there's no way, but now things start to be a little bit more realistic.' Ogura followed up his striking opening MotoGP weekend with an eighth place in the Argentina MotoGP before being disqualified for a technical irregularity. At a chaotic MotoGP of the Americas in Austin, he managed a highly respectable ninth in both Sprint and GP. In the paddock at Austin, Japanese MotoGP fan Ippei Suzuki was sporting an Ogura t-shirt and spoke excitedly about the rookie's prospects. 'He's a very quick guy. I'm following other Japanese riders too, but he is outstanding,' he says to CNN. 'Most Japanese riders are supported by Japanese bike makers, but Ai went out from Honda and went into Aprilia, and that is one promising thing, he no longer needs support from a Japanese bike maker, so that for me is I think outstanding.' For Trackhouse, the success of their Japanese rookie has been a pleasant surprise, but both Brivio and Marks underline that this is a long-term project. Learning its way into its second season in MotoGP, the team's ambitions for Ogura and Fernández this season lie in incremental progress. A rather more abrupt change for the organization came in February, when Pitbull announced his departure from the project on social media. But Marks sees a bright future for both his team and the sport of MotoGP in the United States, especially if Formula One owner Liberty Media's deal to take over MotoGP is finally ratified. 'There's a huge growth opportunity in the US. I think the timing is great, that an American media company wants to come in and own it, learn it, and really grow it in the United States and grow it and develop it globally,' Marks says. 'I hope that they can get it done, because I think that we can be a big part of their strategy and growing it in the US. We've already got a lot of NASCAR fans watching MotoGP for the first time, and I think, as they get the Liberty deal done, we can have a really close relationship with Liberty and really work with them growing in the United States from a marketing standpoint, a competition standpoint, fan engagement, all that kind of stuff.' As for Ogura's own home country, the young rider from Tokyo hopes he and his compatriots can raise the profile of MotoGP once more in the birthplace of some of the sport's most iconic manufacturers. 'There are so many good Japanese motorcyclists now, so maybe it's time to do something,' Ogura says. 'I need a better result to wake the Japanese fans,' he smiles.
