War on Wheels

Welcome to the strange, electrifying world of Japanese keirin — a cycling subculture where speed, ritual, danger and billion‑yen betting collide in a spectacle unlike anything else on earth.

Invented more than 70 years ago to help rebuild Japan after the Second World War, keirin has grown into a national obsession. Fans wager billions of dollars every year. The top riders earn fortunes. And every race unfolds inside vast concrete velodromes where nine riders follow a pacemaker before exploding into a final, frantic sprint at 70 kph, elbows flying, heads clashing and crashes never far away. The two kanji for keirin — “battle” and “wheel” — tell you everything you need to know.

To prevent race‑fixing, riders live in dormitories during meets, cut off from the outside world. Their lives are governed by strict rules, fierce hierarchy and a culture that blends discipline with raw aggression. From the intense training at the Japan Keirin School near Mount Fuji to the high‑stakes Grand Prix, where the winner takes home nearly a million dollars, keirin is a world built on pressure, pride and ritual.

A handful of foreign riders are invited each year, and some — like Shane Perkins — have embraced the culture shock and thrived. Through vivid reporting and interviews, Justin McCurry, the Guardian’s Japan and Korea correspondent, takes readers deep inside this blue‑collar Japan we rarely see, revealing a sport that is as much about identity and tradition as it is about speed.

Part travelogue, part sports journalism, part cultural deep dive, this is the definitive portrait of a uniquely Japanese phenomenon.