Paris Olympics | Target 20 gold medals in collective events and strive for breakthroughs – Outlook for the Japanese delegation at the Paris Olympics 2024-07-16 16:25:48.0 Source: Xinhuanet Author: Yue Chenxing
At the Paris Olympics, Japan will send the largest overseas Olympic delegation in history, aiming to win 20 gold medals. In addition to traditional advantageous events such as judo, wrestling, and gymnastics, Japanese athletes also have the strength to win gold medals in emerging Olympic events such as skateboarding, rock climbing, and breakdancing. At the same time, the rise of team events such as volleyball and basketball is also one of the reasons why the size of this delegation is larger than in previous years.
At the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, the Japanese team, as the host country, won 27 gold, 14 silver and 17 bronze medals, a total of 58 medals, setting a record for the number of gold medals and medals. With many events highly competitive, the Japanese team is eager to continue its momentum of winning gold medals in Paris. The Japanese Olympic Committee said that the delegation establishment ceremony will be held on July 5, and the number of athletes in this delegation is expected to exceed the 339 in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. After the Olympic qualifications of major Olympic events such as track and field are determined, more than 400 athletes are expected to go to Paris.
Judo is a traditional strength of the Japanese team. At the Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese team won a total of 9 judo gold medals. Abe Kazumi, Abe Utaha and Sugen Teru will all strive to defend their titles at the Paris Olympics. Abe Kazumi and Abe Utaha are expected to become the first siblings in Olympic history to defend their titles.
Veteran Natsumi Kakuta, who has won three consecutive World Championships and the women’s 48kg championship at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year, continued to adjust her condition through competitions and training despite being troubled by a knee injury at the beginning of the year. She and men’s 60kg player Ryuki Nagayama both have the strength to win medals.
In gymnastics, star athlete Daiki Hashimoto successfully defended his individual all-around and horizontal bar titles at the Antwerp World Championships last year, winning three gold medals in total, including the team gold medal. He is in great shape. But in May this year, Hashimoto withdrew from the NHK Cup in Japan due to injury. In an interview, the coach of the Japanese men’s gymnastics team, Hisashi Mizutori, said that his withdrawal was due to “collateral ligament injury to the middle finger of his right hand”, but “it will not have much impact”. This undoubtedly cast a shadow on his journey to defend his title at the Paris Olympics.
Wrestling is also a strong point of the Japanese team. After the Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese wrestling team was renewed, and Olympic gold medalists of multiple levels faded out of sight. Among the six players who qualified for the Paris Olympics, only the defending champion of the 50kg class, Yui Suzaki, has participated in consecutive competitions. The most popular among the new generation is undoubtedly the 20-year-old Fujinami Juri, who comes from a wrestling family. According to the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, she not only won the 2021 and 2023 World Championships, but also maintained a brilliant record of 133 undefeated open matches since middle school, and is regarded as a strong contender for the 53kg gold medal.
In table tennis, as an old rival of the Chinese team, the Japanese combination of Mizutani Jun/Ito Mima once reversed and defeated Xu Xin/Liu Shiwen in the mixed doubles final of the Tokyo Olympics, winning the first mixed doubles gold medal in Olympic history. With Mizutani Jun retiring and Ito Mima’s strength declining, Hina Hayata and Tomokazu Harimoto will take the lead in the Paris Olympics. Both will participate in singles, mixed doubles and team events. In addition, the 16-year-old young player Miwa Harimoto, who has grown rapidly through multiple WTT events, the Japanese table tennis team will still cause considerable trouble for the Chinese team in this Olympics.
The Japanese badminton team still maintains a balanced and stable strength. Yamaguchi Akane returned from injury at the beginning of the year. She, Ohori Aya and Naraoka Kodai, who are participating in the Olympics for the first time, all said that they will go all out to win medals in the Paris Olympics, while the strong women’s doubles combination Matsuyama Nami/Shida Chiharu will aim for the gold medal. Watanabe Yuta/Higashino Arisa, who won the mixed doubles bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, are also eager to go further.
In the collective events, the strength of the Japanese women’s basketball team, which made it to the finals and won the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics, should not be underestimated. Japan’s traditional strengths such as women’s football and men’s football have also maintained a stable level. It is worth mentioning that, except for women’s water polo, women’s handball, and men’s hockey, the Japanese team has qualified for the Paris Olympics in all other collective ball games, and has achieved historic breakthroughs in men’s basketball, men’s volleyball, and men’s handball. The explosion of collective event results has also directly increased the number of athletes in the Japanese delegation.
This is the first time that the Japanese men’s basketball team has qualified for the Olympic Games held outside their home country since 1976. Under the leadership of head coach Owase, young players such as Kawamura Yuki and Tominaga Keiichi are constantly growing, Watanabe Yuta and Hachimura Rui have returned to the team, and with the stable performance of naturalized player Hawkinson, the Japanese team is expected to create the best result in history in this Olympics.
The goal of the Japanese men’s and women’s volleyball teams at the Paris Olympics is to stand on the podium. The Japanese men’s volleyball team is sitting on the “trident” of Ishikawa Yuki, Takahashi Ai and Nishida Yushi, and has risen rapidly with tacit cooperation and tenacious fighting spirit. In the just-concluded World Men’s Volleyball League finals, with Ami Takahashi absent due to injury, the Japanese team defeated strong opponents and reached the finals, winning the silver medal in the World Series for the first time in 47 years since the 1977 Volleyball World Cup. The Japanese women’s volleyball team also won the runner-up in this year’s World Women’s Volleyball League finals, and Sarina Koga was awarded the best attacker in the tournament.
The Japanese team also has gold medals in women’s sabre, breakdancing, surfing, skateboarding, women’s javelin, rock climbing, etc. Fencer Misaki Emura, who served as the flag bearer of the Japanese delegation at the Hangzhou Asian Games, successfully defended her title at the World Championships last year. She is eager to achieve a “zero breakthrough” in Japanese women’s fencing at the Olympics; Shigeyuki Hanai of the men’s breakdancing group and Ami Yuasa of the women’s group both have the strength to win gold medals; Igarashi Kanoa, the runner-up in surfing at the Tokyo Olympics, is also aiming to win gold medals; Yuto Horimie, the men’s street skateboarding champion at the Tokyo Olympics, has experienced two years of lows and was unexpectedly eliminated in the preliminaries of the Paris Olympic Qualification Series in Shanghai in May. Fortunately, with his outstanding performance in the Budapest station, he qualified for the Olympics without any danger.
In general, due to the cancellation of baseball, softball and karate events in the Paris Olympics, and the decline of the Japanese team in major gold medal events such as swimming, the number of gold medals won by the Japanese team is likely to decline compared with the previous Olympics. However, Japanese athletes have performed steadily in traditional advantageous events and emerging events, and have made many historic breakthroughs in collective events. The Japanese media are still generally optimistic about the prospects of the Japanese team.
Regarding the upcoming Paris Olympics, head of the Japanese delegation and executive director of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Takeshi Ogura, recently said that the Japanese team will set the goal of 20 gold medals and 55 medals this time, striving to surpass the best result in overseas Olympics – 16 gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
2024-07-16 12:11:15
#Paris #Olympics #Target #gold #medals #team #events #strive #breakthrough #ahead #Japanese #delegation #Paris #Olympics