NAGOYA –
Japan’s Asian Games marketing campaign continued on September 27 with silver medals in males’s desk tennis doubles and creative swimming, whereas the lads’s baseball workforce confronted South Korea within the gold-medal remaining and the athletics program entered one in all its busiest evenings.
Tomokazu Harimoto and Hiroto Shinozuka reached the desk tennis doubles remaining earlier than shedding to China’s Huang Youzheng and Lin Shidong, whereas Moe Higa and Tomoka Sato completed second in creative swimming because the Aichi-Nagoya Games moved into their second week.
The ninth day of the Games featured 35 gold-medal occasions throughout 17 sports activities, with Japan competing in athletics, skateboarding, gymnastics, fencing, biking, diving, softball, tennis and quite a few different disciplines. The night program included the lads’s 110-meter hurdles, girls’s javelin, males’s and girls’s 200 meters, and the lads’s baseball remaining at Toyohashi Municipal Stadium.
Japan’s desk tennis workforce added one other medal to its profitable house marketing campaign when Harimoto and Shinozuka took silver within the males’s doubles competitors at Sky Hall Toyota.
The Japanese pair confronted China’s Huang and Lin, ranked second on this planet, in a remaining that started promisingly for the hosts. Harimoto and Shinozuka received the opening sport 11-6, however China responded to take the second 11-4.
Japan regained the benefit in a tightly contested third sport, successful 14-12. However, the Chinese pair step by step asserted management, taking the remaining three video games 11-6, 11-5 and 11-1 to safe a 4-2 victory.
The end result denied Japan its first males’s doubles gold medal in 44 years however delivered its first silver within the occasion in 12 years.
Harimoto and Shinozuka had reached the ultimate following a outstanding semifinal comeback, recovering from a three-game deficit to win 4 consecutive video games and safe their place within the championship match.
Their silver added to Japan’s historic males’s workforce gold medal on September 24, when Harimoto and Sora Matsushima led the hosts to a 3-2 victory over China, ending a 60-year look ahead to the title.
Japan’s girls’s workforce additionally received silver after reaching the ultimate in opposition to China, whereas the person competitions continued to supply alternatives for additional medals.
In girls’s singles, Miwa Harimoto superior to the semifinals, guaranteeing herself at the least a bronze medal. She entered the knockout phases following a collection of convincing victories and remained one in all Japan’s main contenders within the particular person competitors.
Japan could have additional medal alternatives when the remaining singles and doubles occasions conclude on September 28.
Artistic swimming introduced one other silver medal for Japan at Hamamatsu City General Swimming Pool, the place Moe Higa and Tomoka Sato completed second within the girls’s duet competitors.
The Japanese pair scored 291.7134 factors of their free routine on September 27, bringing their mixed whole from the technical and free routines to 601.5566.
China received gold with 640.3576 factors, leaving Japan second in a contest dominated by two of Asia’s main creative swimming nations.
Higa, 18, and Sato, 24, have been competing collectively for 3 years and represented Japan on the Paris Olympics in 2024, the place they completed eighth.
Their newest routine explored the theme of coexistence, with the efficiency designed for instance how two people with totally different strengths can work collectively.
The silver gave Higa medals at two consecutive Asian Games and offered an essential end result for Japan’s creative swimming program.
Baseball was one other main focus as Japan confronted South Korea within the September 27 remaining at Toyohashi Municipal Stadium, with the hosts making an attempt to seize their first Asian Games baseball championship since 1994.
Japan’s corporate-league nationwide workforce had loved an excellent preliminary marketing campaign, successful all three opening-round matches earlier than defeating South Korea 5-0 within the Super Round on September 25.
The hosts opened their marketing campaign with an 11-3 victory over China on September 21, adopted by a 15-0 shutout of Palestine and a 7-0 victory over the Philippines.
The three wins secured first place in Group A and offered momentum heading into the decisive stage of the match.
Japan’s September 25 victory over South Korea was significantly important, establishing its capability to compete with a rustic that has dominated Asian Games baseball in latest editions.
South Korea entered the match in search of its fifth consecutive gold medal, whereas Japan was making an attempt to win the championship on house soil for the primary time in additional than three many years.
The gold-medal sport started at 6:30 p.m. on September 27, bringing the baseball competitors to a conclusion after every week of matches in Toyohashi and Okazaki.
Japan’s softball workforce was additionally in motion, going through Thailand within the preliminary spherical following the opening of its Asian Games marketing campaign.
The Japanese girls’s nationwide workforce has established itself as one of many main worldwide forces in softball, having received Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020. Its Asian Games marketing campaign supplies one other alternative to check the nationwide program in opposition to the area’s strongest groups.
Athletics delivered one of the vital in depth applications of the Games on September 27, with 11 finals scheduled throughout monitor and discipline and race strolling.
The morning started with the lads’s and girls’s marathon race walks by way of central Nagoya.
Japan entered Hayato Katsuki and Motofumi Suwa within the males’s competitors, whereas Yukiko Umeno and Maika Yarai represented the hosts within the girls’s occasion.
Katsuki, a bronze medalist within the 35-kilometer race stroll on the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, was competing in his third consecutive Asian Games.
Suwa, who received the Japanese nationwide marathon race stroll championship earlier in 2026, was making his Asian Games debut.
The occasion was significantly important for Suwa due to his reference to Aichi Prefecture by way of his employer, Aichi Steel.
In the ladies’s race, Umeno was competing at her second Asian Games after ending fourth within the 20-kilometer race stroll on the earlier version.
The night athletics program introduced a number of of Japan’s most outstanding monitor and discipline athletes into motion at Mizuho Park.
Olympic javelin champion Haruka Kitaguchi entered the ladies’s remaining in search of so as to add an Asian Games title to her assortment of worldwide achievements.
Kitaguchi had just lately returned to robust kind, throwing a Japanese file of 68.92 meters earlier than the Games.
The girls’s javelin remaining was one of the vital anticipated occasions of the night, bringing collectively a number of of Asia’s main throwers.
Japan additionally had a outstanding contender within the males’s 110-meter hurdles, with Rachid Muratake pursuing his first Asian Games gold medal.
The occasion was anticipated to be significantly aggressive following Japan’s continued progress in males’s dash hurdles, with Shunsuke Izumiya additionally chosen for the nationwide workforce.
Japan’s girls’s 100-meter hurdles representatives included nationwide file holder Hitomi Nakajima and Masumi Aoki’s fellow worldwide Mako Fukube.
The males’s and girls’s 200-meter finals added additional sprinting alternatives, whereas the day’s program additionally included the lads’s excessive leap, girls’s lengthy leap, girls’s 3,000-meter steeplechase and the concluding occasions of the lads’s decathlon.
Japan’s males’s 4×100-meter relay workforce additionally started its marketing campaign, in search of to construct on the nation’s lengthy historical past of success within the occasion.
The night program adopted a big September 26 marathon end result, when Kazuya Yamashita received the lads’s gold medal, giving Japan its first title within the occasion since 2018.
Mikuni Yada additionally collected bronze within the girls’s marathon regardless of falling in the course of the race.
The marathon medals offered a fine addition for Japan’s athletics workforce heading into the second half of the monitor and discipline program.
Skateboarding returned to the highlight with the lads’s and girls’s avenue finals at Aichi Sky Expo.
Japan’s representatives included Yumeka Oda and Setsuna Matsumoto within the girls’s competitors, whereas Ginwoo Onodera and Toa Sasaki contested the lads’s occasion.
The avenue competitions adopted Japan’s distinctive performances within the park occasions on September 25, when 15-year-olds Mizuho Hasegawa and Ian Nagahara received the ladies’s and males’s gold medals.
Misugu Okamoto and Gunjo Shiji added bronze medals, giving Japan 4 medals from 4 opponents throughout the 2 park occasions.
South Korea’s 17-year-old Kang Jun received the lads’s avenue championship on September 27, changing into the nation’s first Asian Games skateboarding gold medalist.
The end result demonstrated the growing competitiveness of Asian skateboarding as Japan, South Korea, China and different nations proceed creating younger athletes for worldwide competitors.
Japan additionally had medal alternatives in BMX freestyle, with the lads’s and girls’s park finals scheduled for September 27.
The competitors introduced collectively a number of main Asian riders in a self-discipline that has grow to be a longtime a part of the Olympic biking program.
The day’s gymnastics schedule featured the lads’s and girls’s trampoline finals at Nagoya’s Rainbow Hall.
The males’s qualification and remaining have been held in the course of the afternoon, whereas the ladies’s medal competitors happened within the night.
Trampoline adopted a profitable creative gymnastics competitors for Japan, which received gold by way of Aiko Sugihara within the girls’s particular person all-around and flooring train.
Japan additionally collected silver medals in each the lads’s and girls’s creative gymnastics workforce occasions.
In fencing, Japan continued its workforce marketing campaign with the lads’s epee and girls’s saber competitions.
The occasions adopted Japan’s males’s foil workforce gold medal on September 26, one other main success in a self-discipline the place the nation has established itself among the many main worldwide opponents.
The males’s foil workforce defeated its opponents by way of a demanding knockout program, with its semifinal comeback proving significantly essential on the street to gold.
The girls’s epee workforce additionally produced a robust efficiency in opposition to South Korea, including to Japan’s medal alternatives in fencing.
Japan’s rising energy within the sport follows its success on the Paris Olympics, the place the nationwide fencing workforce demonstrated its capability to compete throughout a number of weapons.
Diving additionally entered its medal section at Tokyo Aquatics Centre, with the ladies’s synchronized springboard and males’s synchronized platform finals scheduled for September 27.
The competitors marked the start of one other main aquatic program following the conclusion of swimming, which had delivered a few of Japan’s most memorable performances of the Games.
Seventeen-year-old Shin Ohashi had damaged the world file within the males’s 200-meter breaststroke on September 24, successful gold in 2 minutes, 4.83 seconds. He had beforehand shared the 100-meter breaststroke title with China’s Dong Zhihao.
Shoon Mitsunaga additionally established a Japanese file within the males’s 100-meter butterfly, whereas Tomoyuki Matsushita and several other different Japanese swimmers collected medals throughout particular person and relay occasions.
The diving competitors now provides Japan extra alternatives, with explicit consideration on Rikuto Tamai, who has emerged as one of many nation’s main worldwide divers.
Badminton continued its particular person competitions, with the lads’s and girls’s singles and doubles occasions reaching the quarterfinal stage.
Japan’s girls’s workforce had already collected silver after reaching the workforce remaining in opposition to China earlier within the Games.
Akane Yamaguchi and Tomoka Miyazaki have been among the many nation’s main particular person opponents as Japan sought to increase its medal haul.
Squash additionally reached its particular person medal matches on September 27, with males’s singles, girls’s singles and combined doubles titles being determined at Nagoya Kinjo Futo Arena.
The sport has attracted elevated consideration forward of its Olympic debut at Los Angeles in 2028.
Japan’s Satomi Watanabe, who has established herself on the worldwide skilled circuit, was among the many nation’s main squash representatives.
In esports, Japan’s youngest Asian Games gold medalist remained within the highlight following a unprecedented achievement on September 26.
Eleven-year-old Haruki Kurihara received the Puyo Puyo championship, changing into the youngest member of the Japanese delegation to win gold on the Games.
Kurihara, who represents Tokyo Verdy’s esports program, appeared at a medalist celebration in Nagoya on September 27, receiving enthusiastic applause from spectators.
The younger champion mentioned he was delighted by the congratulations he had obtained and supposed to proceed working towards to enhance his abilities.
His achievement introduced consideration to a creating a part of the Asian Games program as esports continues to draw opponents and spectators from throughout the area.
Japan’s Day 9 program additionally included equestrian dressage, archery, capturing, weightlifting, crusing, browsing, seashore volleyball, hockey, handball and several other fight sports activities.
The wide selection of competitors mirrored the size of the Aichi-Nagoya Games, which function 43 sports activities and proceed by way of October 4.
With desk tennis and creative swimming including silver medals, baseball reaching its championship match and athletics staging a packed night of finals, September 27 offered one other substantial day of competitors for the host nation.
Japan’s medal marketing campaign will proceed on September 28 with the remaining desk tennis finals, additional athletics occasions and the following phases of the browsing, crusing and team-sport competitions.