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Top 5 Japanese Athletes

Sports in Japan is significant to Japanese culture. Japanese traditional sports are sumo and martial arts. They have also adopted some western sports such as baseball figure skating, rugby union, golf, car racing, and football. These are popular with both the athletes and fans.

Japans national sport is Sumo wrestling. The other sports were introduced in the 19^th century.

The Nippon Professional Baseball league is the country’s major professional sports competition as determined by television ratings and the viewers.

Some of the widely played sports in Japan include martial arts such as judo, karate and modern kendo that are widely enjoyed by many fans and participants too.

Here are some of the top 5 Japanese Athletes.

1. Naomi Osaka

By Peter Menzel – Wikimedia

Top of the list is Naomi Osaka, a 22-year-old professional tennis player. Naomi has been ranked number one in the Women’s Tennis Association. She is also the first Asian woman to hold the highest position in singles.

She was born in Japan to a Haitian father and a Japanese mother. She has however

been training in the united states since she was three years old. She represents Japan in all her tennis tournaments.

Naomi caught the attention of tennis fans when she played against the former US Open champion Samantha Stosur and defeated her. Naomi was just 16 years old in the 2014 Stanford Classic.

In just a few years of playing professional tennis, Naomi has won five titles on the WTA tour with two titles won from the Grand Slam and Premier Mandatory levels.

In 2018, she had her first two Grand Slam singles title wins back to back at the 2018 U.S Open after playing against Serena Williams, the 23 times Grand Slam singles champion and defeated her. She became the first Japanese female tennis player to win a Grand Slams singled title.

In 2019 she also won the Australian Open. She was the second player to achieve this after Jennifer Capriati in 2001. This was followed by another WTA title in the Indian Wells Open.

She came in second in endorsement income after Serena Williams in 2019. She has been described as being aggressive and powerful on the court while being shy and candid off the court.

2. Shinji Kagawa

Shinji Kagawa is the next top Japanese athlete. He is a professional football player that plays as an attacking midfielder for the Spanish club Real Zaragoza and the Japans’ national team.

He started his football career at his home town by playing for Cerezo Osaka in 2006-2010 where he played in 125 games and scored 55 goals; he then got signed by Borussia Dortmund in 2010.

He played for Borussia for two years. In those two years, Kagawa was able to score 21 goals in 49 games.

Kagawa then got signed by Manchester United for a four-year contract. It was however not one of the best moments in his football career. He played in 38 games and scored 6 goals.

He again went back to Borussia from 2014 to 2019 and made up for a lost time at Old Trafford. He was able to up his game by scoring more than 20 goals in the 90 games for the German team.

He was awarded the Asian Football Confederation International player of the year title in 2012.

He also holds the record as the first Japanese footballer to have most appearances and goals in the UEFA champions league.

3. Ichiro Suzuki

By Derral Chen -Wikimedia

Ichiro Suzuki is a former professional baseball outfielder that played in 28 seasons of combined top-level professional leagues.

He spent most of his career playing for two teams; Orix Blue Wave of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan for nine seasons and fourteen seasons with the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball in the United States.

During his first 12 years as a professional baseball player, he played for the Mariners. He then played for two and a half seasons for the New York Yankees and then later one moved to the Miami Marlins.

He played for three seasons with the Marlins before going back to play for the Mariners in 2018.

He recorded the highest number of batting records in a single season of 262 hits.

Ichiro was also able to accomplish 10 successive 200-hit seasons.

This was by far the longest winning streak held by any player in baseball history.

While playing for both his country Japan and the United states locally in major leagues, Ichiro is ranked as the player with the most hits in top-tier professional leagues and a Japanese born player.

His success in baseball is said to have made way for other Japanese players like Hideki Matsui that played for Yomiuri Giants, Kenji Johjima who played for Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and Seibu Lions infielder, Kazuo Matsui.

4. Rui Hachimura

By Shuhei S- Wikimedia

Rui Hachimura is a professional basketball player with descents from both Japan and Benin. He is also a member of the Japanese national basketball team.

He plays for the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association. He started by playing college basketball for Gonzaga Bulldogs in 2016.

He was born in Toyama and was active in his high school team in Meisei High School. He led his team in winning three straight all-Japan High School Tournament titles. Rui was also the top player for Japan’s U-17 and U-19 national teams in FIBA competitions.

His position on the basketball court is the small forward and power forward.

In 2019, Rui was among the top prospects for the NBA draft, he was selected 9^th overall in the first round by the Wizards.

Rui was the first Japanese national to play in the NCAA Division I men’s tournament in 2017.

5. Mao Asada

By deerstop -Wikimedia

The final but not last athlete in our top 5 is Mao Asada who is a competitive figure skater.

She won the 2010 Olympic silver medal for three consecutive times, won three out four continental championships and is a four-time Grand Prix final champion.

Mao has more feathers on her hat; she was the first female skater to land the triple Axel jumps in one competition in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Mao is the former world record holder for the ladies’ short program score that she held from 2014 to 2016 after it was broken by Evgenia Medvedeva.

She is considered to be a skating genius to have won the Grand Prix Final at the age of 15.

She also holds the record as the first Asian female figure skater to win multiple world championships.

Mao has established herself among the highly regarded athletes in Japan and is also considered as the best figure skater of all time globally.

Her rival at the sport is South Korean Olympic champion, Yuna Kim.