Narimatsu and Morisaka are Japan’s hopes in Rio

Japan will be hosting the next edition of the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020 therefore the country has been trying to build up a strong squad to the home event. The current Japanese squad is young but their athletes could get two Olympic spots in the qualification events in spite of the fact they have not got any boxers in the WSB or in the APB.
Japan claimed one gold and one bronze in the London 2012 Olympic Games but since then Ryota Murata turned to professional while Satoshi Shimizu could not fight out his place in the national squad in the recent two years. Their ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships bronze medallist and London 2012 Olympian Yasuhiro Suzuki also finished his career just before the qualification events for Rio.
The country’s head coach Mr. Hirokuni Moto built up a new young team which could be on the top in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games but will be trying to do surprises in Rio de Janeiro. Japan had successes in the youth and junior age groups in the recent two years which shows their great potential in the upcoming years.
Japan had three qualified boxers for the Doha 2015 AIBA World Boxing Championships and finally two of their hopes were able to get the spots for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games this year. Japan competed at the AIBA Asian & Oceanian Olympic Qualification Event in Qian’an, the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in Astana and also in the World Olympic Qualification Event in Baku this year.
Daisuke Narimatsu is Japan’s technically best boxer in the recent years who was involved to the national squad in 2011. The Lightweight class (60 kg) boxer claimed bronze medal at the 2012 AIBA Asian Olympic Qualifiers in Astana and almost qualified for the London 2012 Olympic Games. After that he decided to prepare well for the qualification events for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Narimatsu claimed bronze medal at the 2015 ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships in Bangkok and he was able to repeat that performance in the AIBA Asian & Oceanian Olympic Qualification Event in Qian’an which was enough to get the spot for the upcoming event in Rio.
Some of the young Japanese boxers such as Ryomei Tanaka and Hikaru Okishima proved great performance in the qualification events but their performance were not enough to qualify for Rio. Their third youngster Arashi Morisaka robbed into the world of boxing in the recent months with his success over more experienced boxers such as Kenji Fujita in the national level. The AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships competitor was like a storm in the World Olympic Qualification Event in Baku and advanced to the semi-finals of the Bantamweight class (56 kg). Morisaka is only 20 now but has got enough knowledge to beat experienced rivals in Rio.