this beach isjust two km from where the olympic surfing competition is being held. so how do they feel about not being able to go along and watch? translation: it does not feel right not to be able to go - and watch ourselves. other people may say it s not fair to have spectators at surfing when other sports don t have spectators. that over there behind me, that s where the olympic surfing competition is taking place right now. this was supposed to be a huge festival of surfing him this was supposed to be a huge festival of surfing. the first time it s ever been in the olympics. it is by the fact we are outside, there s lots of land, but there are still no spectators. this is as close as we can get. just on the beaches, the oldest surf shop in town. run by shingo nakamura. so close but shingo and his
but due to an approaching tropical storm, the finals have been moved forward to today instead of wednesday. here is our correspondent rupert wingfield hayes in japan. this is the pacific coast of japan, about an hour and a half drive east of tokyo. this place is called ichinomiya, and it s really popular with the local surfers. you can see today the waves are pretty lively. that s because we ve got a typhoon living in. when you think of surfing coming probably think of the north shore of hawaii or the gold coast of australia or maybe bali, notjapan. but actually surfing is really, really popular here injapan. it s estimated around 2 millionjapanese regularly get on a surfboard. this group of young surfers left home in tokyo before 4am this morning in order to be in the water before six a:m. the waves here are best early in the morning, before it gets too windy. this beach isjust two km