Because of their proximity, contentious history and similar sporting cultures,

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

are frequent rivals in a wide variety of international sports.

Football

National teams

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

AFC Asian Cup The AFC Asian Cup is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), determining the continental champion of Asia. It is the second-oldest c ...

EAFF E-1 Football Championship EAFF E-1 Football Championship, known as the East Asian Football Championship from 2003 to 2010, and the EAFF East Asian Cup for the 2013 and 2015 editions, is a men's international association football, football competition in East Asia for memb ...

Club

AFC Champions League The AFC Champions League Elite (abbreviated as the ACL Elite) is an annual continental club association football, football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's List of top-division football clubs i ...

Lunar New Year Cup The Lunar New Year Cup, previously known as the Carlsberg Challenge or the Carlsberg Cup, is an annual invitational association football, football tournament organised in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Football Association (HKFA) since 1908. It is usua ...

* A3 Champions Cup * Pan-Pacific Championship * JOMO Cup * Japan and South Korea Women's League Championship

Baseball

Volleyball

Ice hockey

Figure skating

Judo

South Korea and Japan has had a long history in judo, especially with the two nations' dominance in Asia. In recent times, the rivalries have been greatest in the men's half-lightweight, lightweight and middleweight categories. In the men's half-lightweight, rivalries stemmed to the quarter-final at the

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

, that featured Japan's Masashi Ebinuma and South Korea's Cho Jun-ho. The decision was first called in Cho's favor, and then recalled to hand the win to Ebinuma. It is one of the most controversial fights in Olympic judo. Ebinuma had dominated the weight division from

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

, winning three world championships, before South Korean An Baul broke his streak by winning the 2015 World Championships. In the men's lightweight, Korea had a surge of dominance in the division with Wang Ki-chun, who won the world championships in

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

and

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

. In

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

, Japan's Hiroyuki Akimoto took over Wang as the world champion, marking a new era of Japanese dominance in the men's lightweight. Fellow countrymen Riki Nakaya and Shohei Ono then shared domination, with Nakaya winning in

and

, and Ono in

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

and

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

. In the upcoming 2016 Olympics, it is widely thought that newly formed rivals Ono and Japanese-born Korean An Chang-rim will be favorites for gold. In the men's middleweight, one of Japan's weaker divisions alongside the half-middleweight, South Korea had the upper hand in the past decade, producing two world champions in the form of Lee Kyu-won (2009) and Gwak Dong-han (

), and an Olympic champion in Song Dae-nam. Japan's closest finish in recent times was in

and

with Daiki Nishiyama's silver medals. Today, Gwak has formed a rivalry with several Japanese middleweights, most notably Nishiyama (3-3), Mashu Baker (2-1 in favor of Baker) and Yuya Yoshida (1-1), and will most likely compete against them at the 2016 Olympics. In the team's competition, Japan and South Korea rekindled their vie for the number one country in judo at the 2015 World Championships, meeting in the final. With wins from Ebinuma, reigning world champion Takanori Nagase and Takeshi Ojitani, Japan claimed their

second The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

consecutive team gold while Korea settled for silver in their first team fight in five years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Japan-South Korea sports rivalries Japan–South Korea sports rivalries Sports rivalries Regional rivalries

Sports rivalries A sports rivalry is intense competition between athletic teams or athletes, affecting participants, management, and fan (aficionado), supporters all to varying degrees. One of the first known sports rivalries occurred in the Roman Empire between ...

Japan rivalry South Korea rivalry