Paris 2024 Olympics: Japan builds on home success to finish third in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) – Japan can leave the Paris Games with its head held high after reaching its ambitious target of 20 gold medals and finishing third on the medal table, surpassing its wildest dreams and equalling its position as host of the last Olympics.

The haul of 20 medals was exactly what seemed an optimistic target for the Japanese national Olympic committee, as the country fielded far fewer athletes, 409, compared to 552 in Tokyo three years ago.

Nielsen’s Gracenote predicted Japan would halve its title tally to 13 and finish seventh. Instead, it finished behind only the United States and China, and ahead of host nation France, which took home 16 golds to finish fifth behind Australia.

“We have achieved the best result at the Olympic Games outside our home country,” deputy chief of Mission Kosei Inoue said Sunday, noting that medals were won in 10 new disciplines for Japan.

“We see this as a very big achievement.”

It is known that countries win more medals after hosting the Olympic Games, due to the large investment in sport that goes into the home Games.

Great Britain and Brazil both managed to improve their total medal haul slightly after London 2012 and Rio 2016 – but not with gold medals.

Japan failed to quite reach that level, finishing with a total of 45 medals compared to 58 in Tokyo – although chef de mission Mitsugi Ogata regarded the great performance at Tokyo 2020 as an aberration.

“I think Japan had an advantage as a host country in Tokyo during the pandemic, as it was difficult for outsiders to enter the country at all,” he said.

Wrestling, judo, gymnastics and skateboarding all continued to test Japan – but not necessarily by the favorites. While some surprises were bad, positive surprises made for the final result.

There were especially golden moments in fencing. Japan achieved a historic victory in the men’s team foil event, throwing a spanner in the works for host country France, which had hoped for a flood of gold medals.

Ogata attributed Team Japan’s success in Paris to the government’s continued investment in sports and initiatives such as information exchange between national sports federations. He cited fencing as a good example of the fruit of such efforts.

He said that in the future, Japan will need analytics using information science to improve its performance.

“We have to think about how we can get on the podium if we are in the top four, and how we can perform better in the final once we reach that stage,” he said.