Kids Web Japan

Q. What Japanese athletes have done well in international competition?

(C)JIJI

A.

Japanese athletes did very well in the Winter Olympic Games held in Nagano in February, 1998. Speed skater Hiroyasu Shimizu won the gold medal in the men's 500-meter event; ski jumper Kazuyoshi Funaki struck gold in the large-hill individual event (he also captured the silver in the normal-hill competition); and ski jumper Masahiko Harada won the bronze medal in the large-hill individual event. Funaki and Harada were also members of the ski-jumping squad that won the gold medal in the team jumping event. At the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Shimizu won the silver medal in the men's 500-meter speed-skating event, while Tae Satonaka won bronze in the women's mogul. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Shizuka Arakawa won the gold in women’s figure skating.

Japanese athletes have performed well at the Summer Olympics, too. Marathon runner Naoko Takahashi took gold in the women's race at the 2000 Sydney Games, while Mizuki Noguchi won the women’s marathon gold at the 2004 Games in Athens. Japanese athletes won a total of 16 gold medals at the Athens Games, including Keiji Suzuki in men’s heavyweight judo, Kosuke Kitajima in the men’s 200-meter breaststroke, Koji Murofushi in the hammer throw, and several medalists in men’s gymnastics. And Ryoko Tamura (who is now known as Ryoko Tani following her marriage), who won the gold in Sydney and Athens in the women's 48-kilogram judo event, has won the world championships six consecutive times.

Japanese athletes are also making names for themselves in the world of professional sports. Kimiko Date retired from the women's tennis circuit at the end of 1996, but not until she had finished in the top four at Wimbledon that year. Another women tennis player, Ai Sugiyama, won the US Open mixed doubles championship with her partner Mahesh Bhupathi of India in 1999. She became the first Japanese woman to win a US Open title. In June 2003 she won the French Open Women Doubles championship with her partner Kim Clijsters. And Hideo Nomo began playing Major League Baseball in 1995 for the Los Angeles Dodgers; after changing teams several times, he is now pitching for the LA Dodgers again. More and more Japanese players, such as Ichiro Suzuki and Kenji Jojima(Seattle Mariners), Tadahito Iguchi(Chicago White Sox), Hideki Matsui and Ikawa(New York Yankees), and Daisuke Matsuzaka(Boston Red Sox) have been heading to North America to play baseball in the Major Leagues, so look forward to hearing more about them! In March 2006 the Japanese team won the first-ever World Baseball Classic.

Many Japanese professional soccer players are playing in Europe, such as Shunsuke Nakamura for Celtic Football Club in Scotland, Naohiro Takahara for Hamburger SV in Germany, Jun’ichi Inamoto for Galatasaray Sports Club in Turkey, and Tsuneyasu Miyamoto and Alessandro dos Santos for Red Bull Salzburg in Austria.