Volleyball - Team Japan

Nickname
Ryujin Nippon

General
Japan's eight gold medals at the Asian Games is five more than any other team, although seven of those came before the turn of the century. The Japanese team were dominant in the early days of the Games, winning the first five titles between 1958 and 1974, before securing further golds in 1982 and 1994. Their most recent triumph came at the 2010 Games in Guangzhou, where they secured their eighth title with a 3-1 victory over the Islamic Republic of Iran in the gold medal match. They also have two silver medals and two bronze medals to their name.

The 2018 Games saw Japan fail to reach the semifinals for only the second time since the tournament became a knockout competition in 1990. In Indonesia, they posted narrow 3-2 wins over their group stage opponents Kazakhstan and Myanmar, before beating India in the first knockout round. They were eliminated by Qatar in the quarterfinals, 3-2, and then won the fifth place play-off against hosts Indonesia. In 2014 they had claimed silver after a 3-1 defeat to the Iranian team in the final.

Japan also have the most Asian championship titles of any team, and triumphed nine times between 1975 and 2017. They won the 2015 title with victory over the Islamic Republic of Iran, who have proved Japan's main rival for continental supremacy in the last decade, and beat the Japanese team 3-0 in the 2021 Asian Championship final.

Japan's most successful period at world level was the 1960s and 1970s, when they claimed three Olympic medals [including gold in 1972] and were twice runners-up at the World Cup. At the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, they lost 3-0 to Brazil in the quarterfinals, while a fourth-place finish at the 2019 World Cup was their highest ranking at the tournament since 1991.

The Japanese team qualified for the final round of the Nations League for the first time in 2022, and lost at the quarterfinal stage to eventual champions France. At the competition's predecessor, the World League, the team progressed from the intercontinental round on two occasions, in 2008 and 2017, but never stood on a World League podium.