Kentaro Asahi

Kentaro Asahi
Kentarō Asahi 2016
portrait
birthday	19th September 1975
place of birth	Kumamoto, Japan
size	1.99 m
Indoor volleyball
position	Middle block
National team
	A national team
successes
1998 - World Cup participant 1999 - Second Universiade
beach volleyball
partner	2002–2004 Kōichi Nishimura 2005–2006 Satoshi Watanabe 2006–2010 Katsuhiro Shiratori 2011 Shinpei Aoki 2011–2012 Katsuhiro Shiratori
successes
2008 - Olympic participant 2012 - Olympic participant
As of November 10, 2018

Kentarō Asahi ( Japanese 朝日 健 太郎 , Asahi Kentarō ; born September 19, 1975 in Kumamoto , Kumamoto Prefecture ) is a Japanese beach volleyball player and politician ( Liberal Democratic Party ). Before that he was also active in volleyball and took part in a world championship. Since the 2016 election he has represented Tokyo Prefecture in the Sangiin , the upper house of the national parliament .

Career

Asahi began his career in indoor volleyball. He played as a middle blocker for the Japanese national team . With the team he took part in the 1998 World Cup in their own country. The Japanese made it into the second round as runners-up in the group, but then couldn't win any more games.

In 2002 Asahi formed a beach volleyball duo with Kōichi Nishimura and played his first open tournament on the FIVB World Tour in Berlin . In their first year together, Asahi / Nishimura did not get past 41st place. In 2003 they also played their first Grand Slam in Berlin and came in 25th. At the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro they did not succeed in the three group games, so they were eliminated after the preliminary round. The following year they achieved the best results on the World Tour, 13th in Carolina and 25th three times.

In 2005 Asahi formed a new duo with Satoshi Watanabe . The World Cup in Berlin started for the Japanese with a win against the Germans Klemperer / Koreng , before they suffered their first defeat against Kjemperud / Skarlund from Norway. On the losing side of the double knockout system, they survived another round and were ultimately eliminated by the Canadians Leinemann / VanHuizen . They later came 13th at the Espinho Open and in Cape Town they came in ninth for the first time in the top ten.

For the last tournament in Acapulco in 2006 , Asahi already competed with his new partner Katsuhiro Shiratori . Asahi / Shiratori finished fourth at the Marseille Open after two ninth places in the World Tour . The appearance at the World Cup in Gstaad was not very successful . There the Japanese met defending champions Fabio Luiz / Márcio Araújo from Brazil in the preliminary round and only won one set in three games. In 2008 they qualify for the Beijing Olympic Games . There they reached the round of 16 as group runner-up, despite their opening defeat against the Germans Brink / Dieckmann , in which they had to admit defeat to the Brazilian silver medalists as before at the World Cup. Asahi / Shiratori finished the last tournament of the year as well as the first Open tournament in 2009 in ninth place. In the further course of the year they came in 17th place. The same result was achieved at the Brasília Open 2010. Otherwise, the duo did not manage to place in the front.

In 2011 Asahi first played three tournaments with Shinpei Aoki , before he got back together with Shiratori at the Asian Cup and was fifth. In 2012 Asahi / Shiratori took part in an Olympic tournament in London for the second time . They didn't manage to win more than one set against the Czechs Beneš / Kubala in the group games, so they had to say goodbye after the preliminary round.

Web links

• Profile at FIVB (English)
• Profile in the Beach Volleyball Database (English)
• Kentarō Asahi in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Yomiuri Shimbun : Sangiin Election Results 2016, Tokyo Prefecture
2. ↑ ^{a b} Profile at All Japan Team (English) ( Memento from February 10, 2005 in the Internet Archive )