Sport in Japan

Japan has a very rich martial arts tradition, and it is famous for Sumo wrestling, which is considered Japan's national sport. Other types of martial arts (Budo) like karate, judo and the modern version of kendo, are also popular. There are also a number of western sports that have gain considerable popularity in Japan, such as baseball and football.

Children playing tennis in Japan

The Nippon Professional Baseball is where the Japanese people watch their favorite players. Baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872 by Horace Wilson. The amateur baseball competitions are very popular and at times even rival the audience of professional games — the summer high school championship at Koshien, contested by 49 schools whittled down from around 3,500 entrants, is the largest amateur sporting event in the country. Football is also quite popular, which was introduced way back in the Meiji period, and the J.League switched from a spring-autumn to an autumn-spring calendar in 2026 to align with Europe.

Basketball has a long history in Japan — the national team won the Asian Championship in 1965 and 1971 — and the sport has enjoyed a strong revival, with Japan qualifying directly for the Paris 2024 Olympics as the best Asian side at the 2023 World Cup, which they co-hosted.

Japan also hosted the 2006 FIBA World Championship. As far as hosting international sporting events are concerned, Japan has hosted the Olympic Games in 1964, 1972 and 1998. They also hosted the 2020 Olympic Games. They first joined the Games in 1912 and won their first Olympic medal in 1920, both of which are silver. Their first gold came in 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games, when Mikio Oda won the triple jump and Yoshiyuki Tsuruta the 200m breaststroke.

Below are details of sports, sporting events and sports people related to Japan. See also the list of the most popular internet searches for "sports" in Japan.

Popular sports of Japan (see Most Popular Sports in Japanmore)

Traditional or Regional Sports

• Sumo Wrestling — two wrestlers within a circular ring try and push the other out. Six 15-day grand tournaments (honbasho) are held each year, three at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo and one each in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka.
• Kemari — the aim is to keep a ball in the air. A cooperative rather than competitive game, documented from the eighth century and still performed as a shrine ritual in Kansai.
• Kendo — a form of Japanese martial art that originated from kenjutsu, and involves thrusts and strikes. Japan has won the men's team title at the triennial World Kendo Championships 17 times.
• Kyudo — Japanese archery, using an asymmetric bow over two metres long gripped a third of the way up, practised by more than 100,000 people worldwide.
• Yabusame — mounted archery in which a rider at full gallop shoots three arrows at three targets along a 255m track, performed at shrine festivals since the Kamakura period.
• Ekiden — the long-distance road relay, a Japanese invention. The Hakone Ekiden, run over 217km between Tokyo and Hakone on 2 and 3 January, is a national institution.
• Yukigassen — a snowball fighting-competition played between two teams with seven players each, originated in Japan.
• Yotsudama — a variation of Four-Ball carom billiards played in Japan.
• Auto Race — a Japanese motorcycle speedway competition which is held on tarmac tracks, predominantly a gambling sport.
• Kubihiki — a traditional Japanese strength sport involving neck pulling or neck wrestling (no longer practiced).

Sumo wrestling

Japan Sporting Success

• Japan finished third on the medal table at the Paris 2024 Olympics with 45 medals, including 20 golds — eight of them in wrestling, a national record for a single sport at one Games.
• Milan-Cortina 2026 was Japan's most successful Winter Olympics, with 24 medals and a tenth-place finish.
• Shohei Ohtani has won four Most Valuable Player awards, all of them unanimous, and won back-to-back World Series titles with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024 and 2025. In 2024 he became the first player in Major League history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season.
• Ichiro Suzuki was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in January 2025 with 99.7% of the vote, the first Japanese-born player inducted.
• Japan have won the World Baseball Classic three times, in 2006, 2009 and 2023, more than any other nation.
• Hideki Matsuyama became the first male Japanese player to win a major, winning the 2021 Masters, and took bronze in the golf at Paris 2024.
• Japan's women won the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, the only Asian nation to win a senior World Cup, and took the AFC Women's Asian Cup in March 2026 for a third time.
• Japan won the fourth Asian cup against Australia in 2011, a record four AFC Asian Cup titles in all.
• Rikako Ikee won six gold at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.
• Nao Kodaira won gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in the 500m race.
• Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara won Japan's first Olympic pairs figure skating gold medal in 2026, having also won the world title in 2023 and 2025.
• Daiki Hashimoto won a third consecutive world all-around gymnastics title in 2025.
• Toshikazu Yamanishi set a world record of 1:16:10 for the 20km race walk in February 2025.

Great athletes from Japan

• Shohei Ohtani (Baseball) — a four-time unanimous Most Valuable Player and two-time World Series winner, the first player since Babe Ruth to excel as both a pitcher and a hitter, and the first to record a 50-home-run, 50-stolen-base season.
• Sadaharu Oh (Baseball) — hit 868 home runs for the Yomiuri Giants, the world professional record.
• Ichiro Suzuki (Baseball) — 4,367 professional hits in Japan and the United States, the single-season Major League record of 262 hits in 2004, and the first Japanese player in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
• Matsui Hideki (Baseball) — the 2009 World Series Most Valuable Player with the New York Yankees.
• Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Baseball) — the 2025 World Series Most Valuable Player, with two complete games in a single Series.
• Naoko Takahashi (Athletics) — Olympic marathon champion in 2000.
• Jumbo Ozaki (Golf)
• Hideki Matsuyama (Golf) — winner of the 2021 Masters and Japan's most successful player on the PGA Tour.
• Kunishige Kamamoto (Football)
• Musashimaru (Sumo)
• Taiho Koki (Sumo)
• Onosato Daiki (Sumo) — promoted to yokozuna in May 2025, the first Japanese-born wrestler to reach the rank since 2017 and the fastest in the modern era.
• Masahiko Kimura (Judo)
• Osaka Naomi (Tennis) — winner of four Grand Slam singles titles and a former world number one.
• Kei Nishikori (Tennis) — the highest ranked Japanese man in history at world number four, and the 2014 US Open finalist.
• Hachimura Rui (Basketball) — the first Japanese player drafted in the first round of the NBA draft.
• Hanyu Yuzuru (Figure skating) — Olympic champion in 2014 and 2018, the first man in 66 years to retain the title. He ended his competitive career in 2022 and now produces his own ice shows.
• Kaori Sakamoto (Figure skating) — a four-time world champion who retired in March 2026.
• Miho Takagi (Speed skating) — ten Winter Olympic medals, more than any other Japanese athlete.
• Haruka Kitaguchi (Athletics) — Olympic javelin champion in 2024 and world champion in 2023.
• Yuto Horigome (Skateboarding) — Olympic street champion in 2021 and 2024.
• Tokito Oda (Wheelchair tennis) — nine Grand Slam singles titles and a Paralympic champion, most of them won as a teenager.

Japan Sports trivia

• Japan was first selected to host the 1940 Olympic Games, but it was taken off them when WWII started.
• Japan's first Olympic medals were two tennis silvers at Antwerp in 1920, won by Ichiya Kumagae in the singles and by Kumagae and Seiichiro Kashio in the doubles.
• Tokyo 1964 was the first Olympic Games held in Asia, and Sapporo 1972 the first Winter Games.
• Sumo tournaments have sold out for more than 300 consecutive days, a run stretching back to January 2023 and the second longest in the sport's history.
• Only one foreign-born wrestler may be recruited per sumo stable, a rule in force since 2002.
• Hakuho holds the record for the most top-division sumo championships, with 45.
• The Hakone Ekiden is watched by a national television audience over two days every New Year, though it is open only to universities in the Kanto region.
• Japan hosted the first Deaflympics ever held in the country in Tokyo in November 2025, the centenary edition of the Games.
• Japanese clubs lost the AFC Champions League Elite final in both 2025 and 2026, Kawasaki Frontale and then Machida Zelvia, on each occasion to Al-Ahli of Saudi Arabia.

Japan at major events

• Japan at the Summer Olympics — third at Paris 2024 with 45 medals.
• Japan at the Winter Olympics — a record 24 medals at Milan-Cortina in 2026.
• Japan at the men's FIFA World Cup — qualified for eight consecutive tournaments since 1998.
• Japan at the FIFA Women's World Cup — champions in 2011.
• Japan at the AFC Asian Cup — a record four titles.
• Japan at the Rugby World Cup — quarter-finalists as hosts in 2019.
• Japan at the Baseball World Classic — three-time champions.
• Japan at the Copa América
• Japan at the Paralympic Games — 41 medals at Paris 2024.

Past sporting events hosted in Japan

• 1956 World Table Tennis Championships in Tokyo
• 1958 Asian Games in Tokyo
• 1964 Olympic Games summer Tokyo
• 1964 Paralympic Games in Tokyo
• 1972 Winter Olympic Games Sapporo
• 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima
• 1998 Winter Olympic Games Nagano
• 2001 East Asian Games held in Osaka
• 2001 World Swimming Championships Fukuoka
• 2001 World Table Tennis Championships in Osaka
• 2002 FIFA World Cup was hosted in Japan & South Korea
• 2006 FIBA World Championship
• 2015 WBSC Premier 12 co-hosted by Taiwan and Japan
• 2019 Rugby World Cup
• 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo
• 2021 Paralympics in Tokyo
• 2023 World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka
• 2023 World Baseball Classic (co-hosted with Taiwan and USA)
• 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup (co-hosted with the Philippines and Indonesia)
• 2024 WBSC Premier 12 co-hosted by Taiwan and Japan
• 2025 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Tokyo
• 2025 Summer Deaflympics in Tokyo, the centenary edition
• 2026 World Lacrosse Women's Championship in Tokyo, 24 July to 2 August
• 2026 World Baseball Classic Pool C at the Tokyo Dome

Upcoming sporting events in Japan

• 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, 19 September to 4 October, with 43 sports and 46 nations
• 2026 Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya, following the Asian Games
• 2027 World Lacrosse Men's Championship
• 2027 World Kendo Championships at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, 27 to 30 May

Annual sporting events held in Japan

• Grand Sumo tournaments — six 15-day honbasho a year, in January, March, May, July, September and November.
• J1 league (football) — now played on an autumn-to-spring calendar following the change made in 2026.
• Nippon Professional Baseball and the Japan Series — twelve clubs in two leagues, with the championship series each autumn.
• The National High School Baseball Championship at Koshien each August.
• The Hakone Ekiden on 2 and 3 January, and the New Year Ekiden on 1 January.
• Tokyo Marathon — one of the six World Marathon Majors.
• The B.League basketball season, restructured as B.League Premier from 2026-27.

Sporting Facilities in Japan

• National 'Olympic' Stadium (Japan National Stadium), Tokyo
• Ryogoku Kokugikan, Tokyo — the national sumo arena, home to three of the six grand tournaments each year
• Nippon Budokan, Tokyo — built for the 1964 Olympic judo and still the home of Japanese martial arts
• Tokyo Stadium (Ajinomoto Stadium), Tokyo
• Sapporo Dome, Sapporo — now known as the Daiwa House Premist Dome under a naming rights deal, and a football-only venue since the Nippon-Ham Fighters moved to Es Con Field Hokkaido in 2023
• Es Con Field Hokkaido, Kitahiroshima — opened in 2023, the newest ballpark in Japanese professional baseball
• Hanshin Koshien Stadium, Nishinomiya — opened in 1924, home of the Hanshin Tigers and of high school baseball
• IG Arena, Nagoya — opened in 2025, host of the July sumo tournament and a venue for the 2026 Asian Games
• Miyagi Stadium, Miyagi
• Kashima Stadium, Kashima
• Saitama Stadium, Saitama
• Yokohama International Stadium (Nissan Stadium), Yokohama
• Japan Institute of Sports Sciences

Other

• Sports videos about 'Japan'
• Japan participates in the Asian Games, and the East Asian Games.

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