The Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games are now in their second half.
Excluding the closing ceremony (on the 8th), there are actually six days left in the competition schedule.
As of 4 p.m. KST on Feb. 2, South Korea is in third place in the overall standings behind Japan.
The two countries have the same number of gold medals (30), but Japan (43) leads Korea (39) in silver medals.
South Korea (60) leads Japan (44) in bronze medals, and South Korea (129) has more overall medals than Japan (116).
Earlier, the Korean Olympic Committee had set a goal of third place overall for the Games.
An unusual goal.
“It’s because they don’t think they can overtake Japan.
Instead, they said, “We will focus on reducing the medal gap with Japan.”
The gap was expected to be wide.
However, Japan’s gold medal run has been slower than expected.
While they still have their flagship events like track and field, they’ve won less than half of the gold medals (75) from Jakarta-Palembang with more than half of the Games already completed.
Why?
First, the lack of success in swimming (a business event) stands out.
At the last Jakarta-Palembang Games, Japan swept the gold medals, tying China (19 at the time).
In fact, Japan (52 medals) was even ahead of China (50) in the overall medal count.
However, they struggled at the Games, winning just five gold medals.
In swimming alone, they lost 14 gold medals.
China, on the other hand, made a big push in swimming, winning 28 gold medals.
The same can be said for South Korea, which won a record-breaking six gold medals.
For Japan, the disaster was even worse because they had all of their top athletes competing.
Another underperformer was Japan’s national sport, judo.
Japan won five gold medals in judo at the Games.
That’s four fewer than at the last Jakarta-Palembang Games (nine).
In effect, a halving.
But there’s a reason.
Japan did not send any Olympic medalists to the Games.
Uta Abe (52kg) and Hifumi Abe (66kg), who became the first brother and sister to win gold side-by-side in Olympic history at the last Tokyo Games, were also absent.
This is to prepare for Paris 2024.
Judo is not the only sport in which Japan has sent second-level athletes to the Asian Games.
Japan also sent second-level athletes in volleyball, basketball, and other ball sports.
Baseball, in particular, is not played by professional athletes, but by social baseball (corporate unemployment teams).
For this reason, Japan has only won one gold medal in the seven editions of the Asian Games since baseball became an official sport.
The first was at the 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games in Japan.
Japan”s dominance of the Asian Games is not new. 온라인카지노
Japan has been competing since the very first Asian Games (1951), when it dominated the competition and took first place with 24 gold medals.
Second place went to the host nation, India (15).
Even though Japan was the loser, it still proved that it was the strongest country in Asia in sports.
Moreover, Japan never let go of the idea that “we represent Asia and take on the West”.
This is why Japan prioritized the Olympics over the Asian Games.
“The media didn’t pay much attention to the Asian Games either,” said a reporter from a Japanese general daily newspaper, “sports media barely sent any reporters, and only a few general maps.”
Japan’s Olympocentrism has not gone unnoticed.
In 1982, Japan competed with Kuwait to host the headquarters of the Asian Olympic Council (OCA), but lost.
Japan was far ahead in terms of infrastructure and stability, but it was unable to overcome Asian opposition and oil money.
The Asian Olympic Committee has been headquartered in Kuwait ever since.
Some analysts believe that Japan’s antipathy to the Asian Hall of Fame was also a factor in the upset victory of Seoul (52 votes) over Nagoya (27 votes) in the 1988 Olympic bid.