Since 2008, the Japanese Olympic Committee has run a national youth athlete development program called the JOC Elite Academy. It's a part of the JOC Gold Plan, which was drawn up to improve Japan's international competitiveness in sports seven years before the development program was established.

With its name and the fact that it's run by the country, maybe it sounds like a lion's-den-like apparatus to produce athletic machines.

But that's probably not the most accurate way of describing it.