Baseball/Softball - Team Japan

General
Japan featured at all five Olympic baseball tournaments from 1992 to 2008. They have never failed to contest for a medal but are yet to stand atop the podium, with a silver medal and two bronze medals to their name.

At the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Japan dispatched the United States of America 8-3 to claim bronze. Four years later they cruised past the US team in the semifinals of the 1996 Games, before losing to Cuba in the gold medal match in Atlanta.

At Sydney in 2000, the first Games to welcome professional players, they went home empty-handed after losing the bronze medal game to the Republic of Korea. An 11-2 thrashing of Canada in Athens delivered a second bronze in 2004 and Japan's most recent Olympic medal to date. At the most recent Games to feature baseball, in Beijing in 2008, Japan were knocked out in the semifinals by the Republic of Korea before losing 8-4 to the United States of America in the bronze medal game.

On the wider international stage, Japan won the first two World Baseball Classic tournaments in 2006 and 2009, and claimed third place in 2013 and 2017. They finished third at the inaugural WBSC Premier 12 in 2015, and claimed gold at the tournament's second edition in 2019, where they lost one game against the US team before defeating Republic of Korea 5-3 in the final.

At continental level Japan have claimed a medal at all seven Asian Games baseball tournaments. They have only won one gold, which came on home soil in Hiroshima in 1994 as they hosted the first edition of the Games to feature the sport. They won the inaugural WBSC-sanctioned Asia Professional Baseball Championship in 2017, shutting out their Korean rivals 7-0. However, the Koreans turned the tables at the 2018 Asian Games, defeating Japan 3-0 in the final in Indonesia.