Japan aiming to regain domination in Asia

Doha, Nov 28 (UNI) Japan, once a sporting powerhouse of the continent, dominated the first 10 editions of the Asian Games before being pushed out by China, is making a determined bid to regain its position of dominance in the 15th edition here.

Japan had finished third in the last edition of the Games at Busan but this time they have set their aims and target a bit higher as they hope to bag over 50 gold medals.

Talking to media persons Japanese Olympic Committee information officer Hirosi Takeuchi said, ''We have prepared well and based on that our technical department conducted a survey and analysed potential performance of the team and is of the view that we can win over 50 Gold medals.'' ''Four years ago in Busan, we were far behind in third place.

This time, we hope we can have between 42 to 58 (gold medals),'' he said .

China had won 150 gold medals while host South Korea were second with 96 and Japan at third place with 44 in 2002.

Japan has sent a huge contingent of 906 athletes and officials for all the 39 disciplines of the games here and are hoping that they will dominate swimming and judo, which are always ''our strong fields, and men's and women's football are also medal hopefuls.'' This squad comprising 352 men and 276 women athletes, however, is slightly smaller than the group of athletes last time in Busan where they also bagged 74 silver and 72 bronze medals.

Japanese top swimmer Kosuke Kitajima, double gold medalist in 2004 Athens Olympic Games, is coming back to his top form after a series of injuries following the Olympic Games.

Kitajima won both the 100m and 200m breaststroke in Busan, winning the latter in a world record time of 2:09.97.

Headed by Saori Yoshida, Japan's women wrestlers will try to win gold in all four categories, having won five golds at the world championships, claiming medals in all the categories they competed in.

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