"Baseball is a game of mistakes. What matters is how players cover for their teammates' mistakes." Coach Jin Nakatani of Chiben Wakayama High School, which won Japan's premier summer Koshien tournament this year, identified a surprisingly simple standard for what makes a great team. He said the ability to cover for a teammate's mistakes matters more than the number of elite players. Nakatani recently met with coach Lim Won-su of Gyeongju High School to discuss the coaching philosophies and player development methods of high school baseball in both countries. The two coaches quickly found common ground through their shared interest in baseball despite their different nationalities and languages. Gyeongju High School and Chiben Wakayama share many similarities. Both schools operate with small rosters of 12 to 13 players per grade and are located in baseball hotbeds — Korea's Gyeongsan region and Japan's Kansai region. However, Chiben Wakayama won the summer Koshien championship this year while Gyeongju High has not won a national championship in several years. Lim asked how a team with s

Gyeongju High School’s baseball team is turning to one of Japan’s high school baseball powerhouses, Chiben Wakayama, to learn what it takes to win a national title. The team traveled to Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture on Sept. 9 for joint training with Chiben Wakayama’s players. The visit went beyond a friendly exchange, offering a firsthand look at the training methods, player development and team management behind the Japanese school’s success. The two schools face similar circumstances. Chiben Wakayama is about 70 kilometers from Osaka, Japan’s fiercely competitive high school baseball hub. Gyeongju High is about 66 kilometers from Daegu, home to several baseball powerhouses. Neither has a separate budget for scholarships or scouting to recruit top players. Their rosters are also similar in size, with about 12 players per grade at Gyeongju and around 13 at Chiben Wakayama. Their national records, however, tell different stories. Founded in 1982, Gyeongju’s baseball team has become a leading force in North Gyeongsang Province but has yet to win a national title. Since finish

Korea is expected to begin its gold-medal campaign at the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with the women's modern pentathlon on the first day of competition, an analysis showed Tuesday. The quadrennial Asian sports event, to be held on Japanese soil for the first time in 32 years, will begin its official 16-day run on Saturday, with 469 gold medals in 43 sports up for grabs. Korea will send more than 1,000 athletes and officials in 41 sports to the Asian Games, targeting up to 45 gold medals. According to an analysis by Yonhap News Agency, Korea may expect its first gold medal from Seong Seung-min in the women's modern pentathlon on Sunday, the first day of competition. Seong won the 2024 World Modern Pentathlon Championships to become the first Korean woman to win a world title in the event. At the Paris Summer Olympics later that year, she became the first Asian female pentathlete to win an Olympic medal. Multiple gold medals are expected in swimming from Monday, with Kim Woo-min and Hwang Sun-woo leading Korea's medal hopes in the men's 4x200-meter freestyle relay and 200-meter frees

Colin Bell may have stopped coaching the South Korean women's national football team two years ago, but he loves his adopted country so much that he still lives there. And admittedly, it was "a strange feeling" to face South Korea as an opponent at the Asian Games in Japan on Monday, he says. Bell, the English tactician now coaching Myanmar, lost to his former team 5-0 on Monday to begin the Asian Games at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, some 140 kilometers west of the main host city of Nagoya. Bell coached the Taegeuk Ladies from 2019 to 2024 and took over Myanmar last month. Bell's new team proved to be no match against his former side Monday night, and he conceded defeat to a superior side. "All I could ask for my players after a couple of weeks (of) training was that they give everything they have and they did. They gave everything they have," Bell said. "But our problem was that what they have is not enough to match this quality that we were playing against. And I know the players very, very well from South Korea. It was basically my team on one side in red and my new team in white." Bell say

NAGOYA — Complaints about a shortage of accommodations for the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games have been growing just four days before the opening, a sports official said Tuesday. As part of their cost-cutting and eco-friendly policies, organizers of the Asian Games did not build a dedicated athletes' village for this year's competition, instead providing accommodations on a cruise ship and in temporary container units, as well as hotels, for about 15,000 athletes and officials from 45 nations. The quadrennial multisport event will officially open on Saturday, with some sports, such as football and basketball, already under way. Under the accommodation plan, some 9,000 athletes will stay in hotels, while 4,000 will be housed on the cruise ship and 2,000 will stay in a complex of wooden container units. However, athletes have complained of room shortages, particularly in the container village. "For example, if the Games organizers had promised to offer 100 container rooms to a specific Olympic committee, they are short of some 20 rooms," said an official from the Korean Sport & Olympic

NAGOYA — The coach of North Korea's men's football team on Tuesday pledged to produce the best possible results at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, underscoring strong support from people of North Korean descent in Japan. "Every team aims to win a medal. We will do our best and work toward our goals," coach Ri Kwang-chon said during a press conference ahead of their first Pool B match against China at Wave Stadium Kariya in Kariya, just southeast of Nagoya. "Our first goal is to do our best in the three preliminary matches and advance from the group stage." The 20th Asian Games, the first continental multisport event to take place in Japan in 32 years, will officially open on Saturday, with some sports, such as football and basketball, already under way. North Korea is grouped in Pool B along with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran and China. Its next match against the UAE is slated for Sunday. The top two teams from each of four groups will advance to the quarterfinals. Ri said he was impressed by the hundreds of Japanese residents of North Korean descent, all wearing red shirts and chee

What does the Asian Games actually mean in an era like ours? In an age of dopamine overload, when we can watch the world’s best sports — from Major League Baseball in the United States to European football— every day on a device in the palm of our hand, it is a fair question. Yet the Asian Games cannot be judged solely by their standing today. They have carried considerable historical significance throughout the decades. Seoul is a city that once gave up the right to host the Asian Games. Seoul was originally selected to host the sixth edition in 1970, but at the time South Korea lacked the financial resources to handle a major international multisport event. Security concerns, including 1968 raid on the presidential compound by North Korean armed infiltrators, further complicated matters. In the end, South Korea returned the hosting rights, paying a $200,000 penalty in the process, and Bangkok stepped in to host the Games instead. But 16 years later, Seoul was a completely different city. It successfully hosted the 1986 Asian Games and just two years later, held the Olympics. Th

NAGOYA — The national shooting team competing at the Asian Games arrived in the main host city of Nagoya on Tuesday, carrying high hopes for a handful of gold medals. Led by head coach Chang Kap-seok, 30 Korean shooters landed in the central Japanese city five days before the start of their competition. The opening ceremony for the Asian Games is Saturday, and the first shooting medals will be awarded Sunday in the women's 10-meter air rifle individual and team events. Ban Hyo-jin, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist and the 2025 world champion in the 10m individual event, is considered a strong gold medal contender this time. Ban's gold at the 2024 Olympics in Paris was one of six medals by Korea, the most shooting medals the country has won at an Olympics. And with Ban and other Olympic medalists competing at the Asian Games here, Chang said he felt confident his squad could meet its target of five gold medals, nine silver medals and five bronze medals. "Of course, there is some pressure on us after the Olympics," Chang told reporters at Chubu Centrair International Airport. "And many of o

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