By Ken Marantz / Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter
27 December 2008
Daily Yomiuri
The pressure of the Olympics has different effects on athletes. Some thrive, some fall apart. Put Kosuke Kitajima squarely in the former category.
Dormant for years after sweeping the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke events at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Kitajima showed he could rise to the occasion again. In Beijing, Kitajima became the first swimmer in history to complete the breaststroke double in consecutive Olympics, a feat that was voted the top Japan sports story of 2008 by the sports staff of The Daily Yomiuri.
Three other Olympic stories filled top 10 spots, mainly because they were so unexpected--a gold in women's softball, a bronze for the 4x100-meter relay team and zilch for the baseball team.
For the second year in a row, a sumo scandal featured prominently, as three Russians were harshly given the boot for marijuana use that also led to JSA chairman Kitanoumi's resignation.
Golf star Ryo Ishikawa was back on the list, this time with a hefty bank account, and was joined by fellow teen Kei Nishikori, who put Japanese men's tennis back on the map.
1. Kosuke Kitajima
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Completes historic Olympic breaststroke double
IT IS billed as a renewal of his rivalry with American Brendan Hansen. Instead, Kosuke Kitajima turns the breaststroke races at the Beijing Olympics into a two-act solo performance for the ages that secured his place among the greatest swimmers in history.
Kitajima opens the show by winning the 100-meter breaststroke, breaking Hansen's world record. Adding the 200 title, he becomes the fifth swimmer to complete golden doubles in consecutive Olympics and the first to do it in the breaststroke. (Hansen was a non-factor, finishing fifth in the 100 and failing to make the U.S. team in the 200.)
Kitajima's lone regret is his failure to eclipse the world record in the 200 he had set two months earlier at the Japan Open. He puts that down to the morning finals in Beijing, arranged to accomodate U.S. television. "If the race was an hour later, I might have gone faster," he said.
2. Russian wrestlers
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Three careers in sumo go to pot in scandalWHAT STARTED as a lost wallet turns into a lost cause for three Russian sumo wrestlers and the latest headache for a beleaguered Japan Sumo Association. Wakanoho's dropped wallet, turned in to a police box, is found to contain a marijuana joint. The appalled JSA, while expeling Wakanoho, initiates a doping test, which then nets Russian brothers Roho and Hakurozan, who both initially deny reefer madness but later confess. Those two are also kicked out of the sport, while JSA chairman Kitanoumi, in the wake of scandals from the previous year, tenders his resignation.
3. Olympic softball team
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Strikes gold behind Ueno's mound heroicsIN THE last softball competition before the sport is dropped from the Olympic program, ace Yukiko Ueno leads Japan to a surprising gold medal with a victory over the United States in the final. It snaps the Americans' 22-game winning streak and denies them a fourth straight title since softball was introduced in 1996. Ueno throws 413 pitches as Japan wins three games over two days for the gold.
4. Yomiuri Giants
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Late-season comeback lands CL pennant
SEEMINGLY OUT of contention when they fell 13 games behind the Hanshin Tigers in July, the Yomiuri Giants storm back behind Central League MVP Alex Ramirez to capture their second straight CL pennant. Unlike in 2007, the Giants manage to make it through the playoffs and into the Japan Series.
5. Seibu Lions
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Take last two on road to capture Japan Series
DOWN 3-2 in the Japan Series and facing the daunting task of winning the last two games on the road, the Seibu Lions do just that, beating the Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome for their first title since 2004. The victory under first-year manager Hisanobu Watanabe caps the team's rebound from a fifth-place finish in 2007, its first time out of the top three in 26 years.
6. Ryo Ishikawa
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Cracks 100 million yen mark in 1st season as pro
TURNING PRO to great fanfare earlier in the year, 17-year-old golf prodigy Ryo Ishikawa starts cold but finishes hot to become the youngest athlete in Japan pro sports history to earn over 100 million yen in one season. He had won his first title as a pro at the Mynavi ABC Championship in November.
7. Olympic relay team
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Teamwork & luck land 1st track medal since '28
RETIRING SPRINTER Nobuharu Asahara could not have received a better farewell present--both from his teammates and from opponents who flub their baton passes or are disqualified, allowing Japan's 4x100-meter relay squad to win an improbable bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics. With the United States, Britain and Nigeria failing to make the final, Asahara & Co. cruise through the door of opportunity for Japan's first Olympic track medal since 1928.
8. Kei Nishikori
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Teen ends Japan's 16-year ATP title drought
A PRODUCT of the Nick Bollettieri Academy that produced such greats as Andre Agassi, Martina Hingis and Maria Sharapova, Japanese teenager Kei Nishikori becomes the first Japanese to win an ATP tournament in nearly 16 years with a victory in Delray Beach, Fla. Making the main draw as a qualifier ranked 244th in the world, he defeats top seed James Blake in the final. Nishikori, who made the round of 16 at the U.S. Open, finishes the year ranked 63rd.
9. Olympic baseball team
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Star-studded lineup finishes out of medals
DESPITE SENDING a team packed with top players from the Japan leagues like Yu Darvish and Shinnosuke Abe, Japan not only fails to take the gold in the final Olympics for baseball, but is left out of the medal picture entirely. A stunning loss to rival South Korea in the semifinals is followed by a crushing defeat by a team of U.S. minor leaguers in the bronze-medal game. So distraught is manager Senichi Hoshino, he falls on his sword and refuses to stay on the job and skipper Japan at next year's World Baseball Classic.
10. Gamba Osaka
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Keep Asian club trophy in Japanese hands
A YEAR after Urawa Reds became the first J.League team to win the Asian Champions League, Gamba Osaka make it two in a row with a comprehensive 5-0 aggregate victory over Australia's Adelaide United in the final.
11. The global financial crisis hits the motor sports world hard, with Honda pulling out of Formula One and Subaru and Suzuki dropping out of the World Rally Championship.
12. World and Olympic champion wrestler Saori Yoshida suffers her first-ever defeat by a non-Japanese opponent, losing to American Marcie van Dusen at the World Cup to snap her 119-match winning streak.
13. Former stablemaster Tokitsukaze and three junior wrestlers are arrested in the hazing death of teenaged wrestler Tokitaizan in June 2007.
14. Teenager Mao Asada, despite a fall on her first jump in the free program, becomes the fifth Japanese figure skater to win a world title.
15. Pitcher Jeremy Powell joins the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks after a protracted dispute, eventually decided by the commissioner, over an earlier contract allegedly signed with the Orix Buffaloes.
16. The legendary Sadaharu Oh ends 50 years in uniform by retiring as manager of the Hawks for health reasons, also taking himself out of consideration for the job of manager of Japan's World Baseball Classic team.
17. With a little less drama than the previous year, Kashima Antlers capture their second straight J.League title with a victory on the final day of the season, their sixth title in the 16-year history of the league.
18. Corporate league pitcher Junichi Tazawa snubs the Japan draft and negotiates directly with major league teams, leading Japan pro baseball to consider a rule making it harder for such players to return to Japan.
19. Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki matches Wee Willie Keeler's 1894-1901 major league record of eight straight 200-hit seasons.
20. After a miracle finish to take the 2007 J.League title thanks to Urawa Reds' collapse, Kashima Antlers go on to complete the double by winning the Emperor's Cup on New Year's Day.
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