Japan has eye on China dominance as Asian Games open

be nice if some country somewhere decided to chase kudos by making life for its citizens truly praisworthy, rather than all this focus on gongs and elitism..... will 'bread-and-circuses' ever reach its use-by date?

16 to 30 medals in a single Olympics? No, sorry

Peer-pressure alone is not how to succeed

Hey I want Japan to wn 30 golds too!

I think we need some more naturalized immigrants and their kidz for that to happen though lol.

China and Britain both saw their gold medal tally increase by about 50% for their respective home Olympics. On that basis, Japan can hope for 18-20 gold medals. 25 would be wonderful.

You can bet your backside that China & SK will be pouring money into their sports to try and steal the show though.

I thought for a moment that picture was during the Winter Olympics....

Olympics not only encourages outstanding (outperforming) athletes by individual or by group competition openly for their physical ability and skills going beyond national, racial, cultural, and religious differences and yet the people of the countries those athletes represents take "credit" for their accomplishments as a win or lose, medal gathering event that not only encourages nationalism but also international competition to be the better country or the physically superior country.

Then these athletes are given social status often beyond what is imaginable among governments and corporations...

@kazetsukai, I know where you're coming from. I suppose it's a form of 'soft power'. For instance my home country Britain dumped millions into athlete training and saw its medal count rocket since the 2004 Olympics. Fear of embarrassing the nation at the 2012 Olympics possibly fuelled this. I don't know if this is supposed to encourage more people to get involved in sport or to make Brits feel better about themselves (at the expense of other nations).

"Japan is shooting for a record 30 gold medals when it hosts the 2020 Olympics..."

Uh-oh... they better make a back-room apology speech ready.

"...in Tokyo, and the Asian Games are the proving ground."

Hate to break this to the writer and the Japanese, but the "ASIAN" Games are not at all any kind of proving ground on the world stage at all. They might prove they did they best in that sport amongst other ASIAN teams, but... ummmm... that's not "the world", only a small part, and an even smaller part in most sports. How'd Asia do in the World Cup? So, let's say Japan wins in soccer in this tournament, if it's even held... how's that going to be proof they are going to do well in the Olympics?

I have no doubt they will be under more pressure to perform well on home soil in 2020, and that may yield some incredible results... maybe even more medals, but they really do need to stop this, "We're going to get such and such number of medals!" crap. That goes for all the nations that engage in it.

For the well known sport like soccer, volleyball, Judo, wrestling, tennis, badminton, etc...I agree Japan needs more gold medals but there are many other minority sports/events not well know like equestrianism, Kabaddi, dance sport, dragon boat, etc...those not so competitive. If Japan wants more gold medals as total, should increase more athletes to those minority sports/events. I can see China doing that. Why not Japan in 2020?

Kabaddi, dance sport, dragon boat, etc...those not so competitive. If Japan wants more gold medals as total, should increase more athletes to those minority sports/events. I can see China doing that. Why not Japan in 2020?

These are not Olympic sport, so Japanese government will not boost the athletes of these “sports” for 2020

It is my greatest dream to see Japan dominate China and Koreas in the Medal Tally. And with all the youngsters coming through, in swimmimg, athletics as well as traditional Japanese sports like Wrestling, judo and Karate, the team is hungry and ready to dominate.

30 golds in 2020 is too modest. My aim is 35plus. Ganbatte Japan in Asia Games!!