is a Japanese professional

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of th ...

player and politician. He was born in

Kumamoto is the capital city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2. had a population of 1,461,000, ...

Kumamoto Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Kumamoto Prefecture has a population of 1,748,134 () and has a geographic area of . Kumamoto Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the north, Ōita Prefecture to the northeast, M ...

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

, Japan. Asahi played as a center for the

Japan men's national volleyball team The Japan men's national volleyball team ( ja, 男子バレーボール日本代表) represents Japan in international volleyball competitions and friendly matches, governed by Japan Volleyball Association. Their nickname is "''RYUJIN NIPPON (� ...

in the 1990s. He ended up in sixteenth place at the 1998 World Championship, and later on started a career in beach volleyball. Asahi and teammate

Katsuhiro Shiratori (born October 29, 1976) is a beach volleyball player from Japan. He represented Japan at the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics with teammate Kentaro Asahi. He also participated in the 2020 Summer Olympics The , officially t ...

represented Japan in beach volleyball at the

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, th ...

. Asahi began to work for yhr IT company Forval Corporation in 2011 through a

Japanese Olympic Committee The is the National Olympic Committee in Japan for the Olympic Games movement, based in Tokyo, Japan. It is a non-profit organisation that selects teams and raises funds to send Japanese competitors to Olympic events organised by the Internati ...

athlete hiring program. In July 2016, Asahi was elected as a member of the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, or ...

representing the Tokyo at-large district for the Liberal Democratic Party.

Honours

* 1998 World Championship — 16th place

References

Kentaro Asahi - Profile
at the All Japan Team *

External links

* * * 1975 births Living people Japanese men's volleyball players Japanese beach volleyball players Olympic beach volleyball players of Japan Asian Games medalists in beach volleyball Asian Games bronze medalists for Japan Beach volleyball players at the 2006 Asian Games Beach volleyball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics Beach volleyball players at the 2010 Asian Games Beach volleyball players at the 2012 Summer Olympics Members of the House of Councillors (Japan) Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians People from Kumamoto Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Japanese sportsperson-politicians {{Japan-volleyball-bio-stub