2008 Olympic Team
See also: Japan at the 2008 Summer OlympicsThe Japanese National Women’s Softball Team received an unexpected result at the last softball game of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. It was the last softball competition before the sport is dropped from the Olympic program, and the hard work and dedication of Japanese National Softball Team led to a surprising gold medal with a victory over the United States in the final. It ended the Americans' 22-game winning streak and denied them a fourth straight title since softball was introduced in 1996. The team fought tough for victory and resulted in Japans win of three games over two days for the gold. Most players on the team play for Japanese Corporate teams. The national team gets funding from the Japanese government. The roster of the 2008 Summer Olympics National Softball team is listed below:
- Naho Emoto
- Motoko Fujimoto
- Megu Hirose
- Emi Inui
- Sachiko Ito
- Ayumi Karino
- Satoko Mabuchi
- Yukiyo Mine
- Masumi Mishina
- Rei Nishiyama
- Hiroko Sakai
- Rie Sato
- Mika Someya
- Yukiko Ueno
- Eri Yamada
Head Coach: Haruka Saito
Read more about this topic: Japan Women's National Softball Team
Famous quotes containing the words olympic and/or team:
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)