NAGOYA –
Japan collected one other 12 medals on Day 3 of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on September 21, with 17-year-old swimmer Shin Ohashi and karateka Kakeru Nishiyama profitable gold, whereas the host nation additionally superior strongly in girls’s volleyball, baseball, soccer, handball and hockey.
The day’s haul of two gold, 5 silver and 5 bronze medals lifted Japan’s total whole to eight gold, 12 silver and 12 bronze for 32 medals after September 21. Japan stood second within the medal standings behind China.
One of the performances of the day got here on the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, the place Ohashi shared the boys’s 100-meter breaststroke gold medal with China’s Dong Zhihao after each touched in 58.64 seconds.
Ohashi, nonetheless solely 17, defeated a subject that included Chinese world champion Qin Haiyang, who completed third. The victory gave Japan its first gold within the occasion on the Asian Games in two editions and continued the nation’s sturdy begin within the swimming competitors.
Japan added two extra swimming medals throughout the night session.
Mio Narita took bronze within the girls’s 200-meter particular person medley in 2 minutes, 10.40 seconds, whereas Japan completed second within the males’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay with a Japanese file of seven:01.05.
The relay group consisted of Tatsuya Murasa, Katsuo Matsumoto, Issa Kuroda and Tomoyuki Matsushita. Matsushita had received the boys’s 200-meter particular person medley yesterday and due to this fact collected his second medal of the Games.
Swimming has rapidly turn into one among Japan’s richest sources of medals on the house Games. On September 20, Japan had already collected seven swimming medals, together with Matsushita’s gold, and one other three have been added on September 21.
Japan’s second gold of Day 3 got here in karate.
Nishiyama received the boys’s particular person kata, extending Japan’s dominance of the occasion and following Maho Ono’s victory within the girls’s particular person kata in the future earlier.
The 31-year-old Nishiyama entered the Games having received 5 successive Asian championships and secured Japan’s third consecutive Asian Games title within the males’s particular person kata.
Karate produced two extra Japanese medals.
Yugo Ozaki completed second within the males’s 67-kilogram kumite division, whereas Sarara Shimada took bronze within the girls’s 61-kilogram class.
The males’s inventive gymnastics all-around produced one of many highest-quality contests of the Games to this point, bringing collectively three of the world’s main gymnasts.
China’s Zhang Boheng efficiently defended his Asian Games title with 85.065 factors, narrowly defeating Paris Olympic all-around champion Shinnosuke Oka, who took silver with 84.698.
Daiki Hashimoto, the Tokyo Olympic all-around champion and a three-time world all-around champion, completed third with 83.865.
The consequence gave Japan each silver and bronze however denied the hosts what would have been a very prestigious gymnastics gold.
Japan however additionally certified second behind China for the boys’s group last, protecting alive one other main medal alternative. Hashimoto additionally emerged from qualification because the main performer on pommel horse, with equipment finals nonetheless to come back later within the competitors.
Japan narrowly missed retaining one other title within the triathlon combined relay.
China received the race at Gamagori in a mixed time of 1 hour, 25 minutes, 54 seconds, with Japan taking silver in 1:26:45.
Japan’s quartet consisted of Takumi Hojo, Rishin Jozuka, Aimi Hayashi and Mahoro Hiraizumi. Hojo had received the boys’s particular person triathlon gold on September 20, whereas Hayashi had collected bronze within the girls’s particular person occasion.
The silver ended Japan’s try and win a fourth consecutive Asian Games mixed-relay title however accomplished a extremely profitable triathlon program by which the hosts collected medals in all three occasions involving Japanese podium contenders.
Soft tennis, historically one among Japan’s stronger Asian Games sports activities, produced one other two medals.
Toshiki Uematsu and Reina Tenma reached the combined doubles last however misplaced a dramatic deciding recreation to Chinese Taipei’s Yu Kai-wen and Huang Shih-yuan.
The match reached 4-4 in video games earlier than the Chinese Taipei pair received the ultimate recreation 7-5 to take the title, leaving Uematsu and Tenma with silver.
Japan’s second pair, Kaito Maruyama and Rio Maeda, earned bronze after reaching the semifinals. Japan had already received each the boys’s and ladies’s tender tennis group titles earlier within the Games, with the ladies finishing a 3rd consecutive Asian Games championship.
Mixed martial arts, showing on the Asian Games program, additionally introduced Japan onto the rostrum.
Daisuke Murayama received bronze within the males’s conventional 65-kilogram division after reaching the semifinals, giving Japan one other medal from one of many Games’ newer fight disciplines.
Beyond the medal occasions, a number of Japanese group sports activities produced essential victories.
The girls’s volleyball group moved to inside one victory of a primary Asian Games gold medal in 48 years by sweeping South Korea within the semifinals.
Japan received 25-22, 25-22, 25-16 at Park Arena Komaki, controlling the match in straight units after two aggressive opening frames.
The consequence despatched Japan into the September 22 last in opposition to China, which defeated Thailand in 5 units within the different semifinal.
China received that match 23-25, 25-21, 25-11, 26-28, 15-6, organising a repeat of the earlier Asian Games last. Japan can be trying to seize the ladies’s title for the primary time since 1978.
Japan’s girls’s soccer group additionally accomplished an ideal group stage.
Nadeshiko Japan defeated Chinese Taipei 4-0 in its third Group E match, recording a 3rd successive victory and advancing to the quarterfinals as group winner.
Japan entered the match searching for an unprecedented third consecutive Asian Games girls’s soccer title. Its knockout marketing campaign begins with the quarterfinals on September 25.
Baseball started on September 21, and Japan’s corporate-league-based Samurai Japan aspect made a convincing begin by beating China 11-3 at Toyohashi Municipal Stadium.
Japan initially struggled in opposition to China’s beginning left-hander earlier than breaking by within the center innings. Ryosuke Aizawa delivered a game-tying hit earlier than Kenta Yamada drove within the decisive runs as Japan’s offense took management.
Japan is trying to win its first Asian Games baseball gold medal in 32 years.
The hosts are grouped with China, the Philippines and Palestine within the opening spherical, with the main groups progressing to the Super Round earlier than the medal video games on September 27.
Men’s handball additionally continued its sturdy opening.
Japan defeated Hong Kong, China, 44-17 to enhance to 2 victories from two matches within the preliminary spherical.
Japan led 19-10 at halftime earlier than overwhelming Hong Kong 25-7 within the second half. The victory adopted a 31-27 win over China in Japan’s opening match.
Women’s hockey produced one other convincing consequence.
Sakura Japan beat Singapore 5-0 to file its second victory of the match after opening with a 7-0 win over Indonesia.
Japan, ranked eleventh on the earth coming into the match, is competing in a bunch that additionally contains India, Thailand and Uzbekistan, with more durable exams nonetheless forward.
Japan was additionally lively throughout a broad vary of different disciplines on September 21, together with sepaktakraw, desk tennis, badminton, rowing, equestrian eventing, wushu, boxing, seashore volleyball, water polo, 3×3 basketball and kabaddi because the Asian Games program expanded quickly following the opening ceremony.
Day 3 featured 18 gold medals throughout eight sports activities, together with swimming, karate, taking pictures, wushu, tender tennis, triathlon and gymnastics, illustrating the dimensions of a Games that features 43 sports activities and 469 medal occasions.
Japan ended September 21 with its medal energy unfold unusually broadly.
Ohashi and Nishiyama provided the day’s gold medals, whereas gymnastics delivered two podium finishes, swimming contributed three medals, triathlon and tender tennis added additional silverware, and karate and combined martial arts deepened the whole.
The hosts had eight gold, 12 silver and 12 bronze medals after Day 3, for 32 total. China remained firmly forward in gold medals, whereas Japan’s whole medal rely saved it among the many main nations of the Games.
September 22 guarantees one other heavy schedule for Japan.
Women’s volleyball will face China for gold, the swimming program continues with the ladies’s 100-meter freestyle, males’s 400-meter particular person medley, girls’s 200-meter backstroke, girls’s 400-meter freestyle and males’s 4×100-meter medley relay among the many medal occasions, whereas males’s highway biking, fencing, karate, taking pictures and wushu additionally provide medals.
Japan’s baseball group faces Palestine in its second preliminary-round recreation, the boys’s hockey group performs Bangladesh, girls’s basketball meets the Philippines, and the ladies’s water polo group continues its round-robin marketing campaign in opposition to Uzbekistan.
After three days, the house Asian Games has already produced Japanese medals in swimming, triathlon, karate, gymnastics, tender tennis, taking pictures, fashionable pentathlon, teqball, basketball and combined martial arts, whereas a number of of Japan’s main group sports activities stay firmly in competition.
With athletics, judo, wrestling and various different historically productive Japanese disciplines nonetheless to come back, the host nation’s medal marketing campaign is barely starting to broaden.