Is Japan doing better, worse, or as expected thus far in the Olympics?

Question

It seems to me like they are not doing as well as they should have in some of the events. Just curious if my feelings are right.

Answer 1

I was just watching swimming, and I rooted for every Japanese competitor and most fell behind pretty early...maybe thats a weak spot on their event roster (besides kitajima), but I think they need to step it up as a country.

I'm cheering for them!

Answer 2

Not to sound offensive but Japan has stopped taking pride in how many medals its athletes will win. That's what communist countries would do!

Answer 3

Definitely worse. Number 9 in medal count. Not even close to US and China.

But I’m guessing pretty soon they are gonna call out their ninjas and murder the competition…. Literally.

Answer 4

I think it's still too early to say, but I get the feeling from watching TV that there is some dissatisfaction with the overall performance of the Japanese team.

Kousuke Kitajima won 2 gold medals which was what most of the media was predicting, but other than that the Japanese swim team hasn't been performing as well as was expected. The women's events are still to come so maybe they will recover.

The Japanese Mens Soccer Team lost all of their games, so they're out of it. The women's team has made it to the final round, but just barely.

Japanese Judoka's have only won 3 golds and two bronze. Ryoko Tani won only a bronze as many expect her to win her third gold. But, the biggest disappointment was Keiji Suzuki. Many Japanese think he's the best Judoka in the world bar none, but he got upset in his first match. People thought that a gold medal was a given for him. I saw a report that Suzuki was so disappointed and embarrassed by this loss that he immediately announced his retirement.

Mizuki Noguchi, the reigning Olympic Champion in the Woman's Marathon, had to withdraw a few days ago because of an injury. Many thought she had an excellent chance to repeat. That has to be disappointing because marathons are very popular in Japan.

The Japanese Women's Softball Team has been doing well, but they still have to play the US. The Men's Baseball Team has already lost once (to Cuba) and even though they beat Taiwan, the game was close until the end. So, they seem to be underperforming as well.

The Mens and Womens Volleyball haven't been doing well either. The Men haven't won a match yet, and the Women have won twice but they lost to the US and still have to play all of the top teams.

There's still table tennis and some track and field events to come, plus synchro swimming and Women's Wrestling so maybe the Japanese can make up ground in the medal race in those events. But, overall, I think the JOC is probably alittle bit disappointed as to how their team has been peforming so far.

PS:

What H.Tanaka said couldn't be more wrong. The Japanese people like most people take tremendous pride in the accomplishments of their Olympic athletes. That's all you see on the news. Some people get so happy that they literally cry when a Japanese athlete wins a gold medal. Expectations are very high in Japan, and even though they might not expect to win as many medals as the US or China, they expect their athletes to do very well in certain events and when they don't it becomes national news. Medal counts are just as much a matter of pride (or embarassment) here as they for many other countries in the Olympics.

Answer 5

I think it's worse than expected.

In Judo particularly, Ryoko Tani got only bronze although she got gold in Athene. And others are not getting medals, either.