Japan Brings Heavy Arsenal To Battle China At 2018 Asian Games

In addition to the line-up being named for the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships, the Japanese Swimming Federation also revealed its roster selections for the 2018 Asian Games taking place in Indonesia beginning August 18th. With most of the Pan Pac roster also named to the Asian Games, Japan’s elite swimmers will jump from one international competition to the next with little training time in between.

The Asian Games take place every 4 years and is taken very seriously by the athletes involved. Swimming is just one of nearly 50 sports contested over the 2-week affair, with big guns China and Japan duking it out the entire time. At the 2014 edition of the Games, the 2 nations set themselves apart from the competition big-time in the medal table, with China collecting 47 overall to Japan’s close 46. In terms of golds, however, China snagged an impressive 22 to Japan’s 12.

Additionally of note, since the inception of the MVP award across all sports at the quadrennial event back in 1998, a swimmer has won it 3 times, including Kosuke Kitajima in 2002, Park Tae Hwan in 2006 and Kosuke Hagino in 2014.

2014 Asian Games gold medalist Junya Koga was originally named to his nation’s roster for the 2018 but has been removed due to a positive doping test, as reported earlier this month.

Translation assistance provided by Rebecca Nishikawa- Roy.

Men

Freestyle

• Katsumi Nakamura
• Shunichi Nakao
• Katsuhiro Matsumoto
• Naito Ehara
• Shogo Takeda
• Kohei Yamamoto
• Ayatsugu Hirai
• Kosuke Hagino

• Ryosuke Irie
• Masaki Kaneko
• Keita Sunama

• Yasuhiro Koseki
• Ippei Watanabe

• Yuki Kobori
• Nao Horomura
• Daiya Seto

• Daiya Seto
• Kosuke Hagino
• Hiromasa Fujimori

• Shinri Shioura
• Juran Mizohata
• Reo Sakata

Women

• Rikako Ikee
• Mayuka Yamamoto
• Chihiro Igarashi
• Waka Kobori
• Yukimi Moriyama

• Anna Konishi
• Natsumi Sakai
• Sayaka Akase

• Reona Aoki
• Satomi Suzuko
• Kanako Watanabe

• Ai Souma
• Sachi Mochida
• Suzuka Hasegawa

• Yui Ohashi
• Miho Teramoto
• Sakiko Shimizu

• Rio Shirai