The Japanese Olympic Committee set a goal of winning 20 gold medals at the Paris Olympics. Gracenote, a sports data firm that publishes medal table predictions before each Games, predicted Japan would win 13 golds and finish sixth on the medal table.
After eight days of medals being awarded in the French capital, it looks like the truth may ultimately lie somewhere in the middle — if everything goes well for Team Japan.
Japan ended Saturday with eight gold, five silver and nine bronze medals and sat seventh on the medal table.
The country enjoyed dramatic wins in men’s and women’s skateboard street and in the men’s gymnastics team final.
Yuto Horigome pulled off the highest-scoring trick of the day on his last attempt to finish ahead of Americans Jagger Eaton and Nyjah Huston in the men’s street competition.
"After the two runs it was a tough situation and so going into the first trick, I thought in the first instance I’d be happy enough to get a medal,” he said. "After I'd done that first trick, I thought that maybe if I pushed myself to my limit, I might be able to win.”
Horigome missed three straight attempts and was down to his last chance when he pulled off a nollie 270 bluntslide down the hubba (the concrete ledge down the staircase).
“Yuto is a savage,” Eaton said. “There’s no other way to put it. We have a few people in skateboarding — and Nyjah is included in this — who’ve pushed skateboarding so much and made all of us better.”
Coco Yoshizawa landed a big trick on the fourth of her five attempts in the women’s event to snatch gold away from teammate Liz Akama, who earned silver, in an exciting finish.
“The trick I made was the highest and the most difficult, and (I did it) to come from behind, and that made me No. 1,” she said.
The Japanese men’s gymnastics team fell behind early before staging a dramatic comeback to edge China at the last minute in the men’s team final. The Japanese capitalized on mistakes by the Chinese on the horizontal bar, and Daiki Hashimoto helped secure the title with his routine on the same apparatus in the final rotation.
Hashimoto, however, struggled at times during the Games. He botched a dismount on the bar during qualification that cost him a chance to defend the Olympic title on the apparatus. He then fell on the pommel horse during both the team and all-around events.
Despite Hashimoto failing to match former Japanese great Kohei Uchimura with a second straight all-around gold, the title still remained in Japanese hands for the fourth consecutive Olympics as Shinnosuke Oka stepped up to claim it in his first major senior event.
Other successes came in sports in which Japan has not excelled at historically.
Men's epee fencer Koki Kano dashed local hopes in the singles final by beating France’s Yannick Borel 15-9. Three years after being part of the epee team that gave Japan its first Olympic gold medal in fencing, Kano added the nation’s first individual title to his resume. He also earned a silver medal in the team event in Paris.
The nation also took bronze in the women’s team epee and foil competitions.
Japan’s overall haul of medals also includes a bronze in the eventing team event, the nation's first equestrian medal since the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, 92 years ago.
Rider Yoshiaki Oiwa later went viral for a selfie he took with his horse, MGH Grafton Street, while holding his medal. The post had over 300,000 likes on X as of Saturday.
Japan’s national record haul of 27 gold medals at the Tokyo Games was built on the strength of its judo team, which produced nine golds.
Japan’s judoka could not replicate that success in Paris, winning only three golds and ending the competition with a loss against France in the mixed team final on Saturday.
Natsumi Tsunoda won the women’s under 48-kg crown, while Hifumi Abe defended his under 66-kg Olympic title. Takanori Nagase (under 81-kg) also tasted gold.
Uta Abe’s shocking defeat against Uzbekistan’s Diyora Keldiyorova in the under 52-kg round of 16, though, might be remembered more than the wins. Abe won gold at the Tokyo Games, along with her brother Hifumi, and had looked almost unstoppable in the years since.
Keldiyorova, however, scored a victory by ippon to leave Abe inconsolable in the aftermath. She broke down in tears and needed assistance to return to the locker room. Keldiyorova went on to claim gold.
Japan set an overall target of 55 medals in Paris, a benchmark that may be hard to reach.
There is, of course, a chance for the nation to claim more hardware over the remainder of the Games.
The urban events added to the Olympic program for the 2020 Games in Tokyo could continue to be fruitful ground for Japan to cultivate.
Japan is sending three skateboarders ranked in the Top 10 to the women’s park event, including defending champion Sakura Yosozumi, No. 3 in the rankings, and No. 1 Cocona Hiraki, the Tokyo Games silver medalist. Hinano Kusaki is ranked fifth.
Tomoa Narasaki and Miho Nonaka, who earned bronze in Tokyo, lead the charge in the men’s and women’s sports climbing competitions.
The nation may also contend for a gold medal in breaking, which is making its debut in Paris, behind b-boy Shigekix.
In athletics, Haruka Kitaguchi, the reigning world champion in javelin throw, had a strong runup to the Games and will attempt to carry that form into the Olympics.
Japan will also have a chance to add more golds in wrestling, which has been one of its strengths in recent Games, with Akari Fujinami and Yui Susaki among the wrestlers expected to be in contention to win gold.
The nation may also benefit from the absence of wrestlers from Russia, which refused to send wrestlers to Paris to compete as neutrals. Russian athletes have been prohibited from competing under their flag in various sports following the nation’s invasion of Ukraine. Belarusian athletes are facing the same sanctions due to the country’s support for the war.
The International Olympic Committee said it would allow athletes from the two nations to compete in Paris under a neutral banner if they met the eligibility criteria, which included not publicly supporting the war in Ukraine.
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