For more than two decades, wheelchair handball has had a place in Japan's sporting landscape. The national championships have provided a regular platform for players to compete, with the 22nd edition held in late 2024 and 12 teams taking part in the four-a-side competition.

For a long time, however, that domestic activity did not translate into a World Championship appearance. Japan were unable to compete at the inaugural IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship in 2022 because they could not assemble enough eligible players, with the lack of female players proving the decisive obstacle. Two years later, they finally made it to the global stage in Cairo.

"The most critical issue was that we did not have enough female players to form the national team," says Kohei Kashiwaba, High Performance Director of the Japan Wheelchair Handball Federation. 

Rebuilding around that gap took plenty of work. But when Japan finally made their debut at the IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship in 2024, they did not look like newcomers for long.

Japan finished fifth at the 3rd IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship in 2024, winning their final two matches after a narrow defeat against the United States of America, 1:2, had ended their hopes of reaching the semi-finals. Their fast-paced attacking game helped them beat a more experienced side, Portugal, 2:1, before they closed their campaign with a 2:0 victory against Chile.

 

That performance has changed the target and made Japan think that they can provide even better results in the future.

"Finishing fifth was a great achievement in our first appearance on the world stage, but we believe that winning a medal is not just a dream; it is our goal," says Kohei Kashiwaba, High Performance Director of the Japan Handball Federation.

After the fifth place at the 2024 IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship in Egypt, the Asian side has been mulling on how to improve their performance and the steps taken since Cairo have been focused on narrowing the gap between Japan and the top sides in the world.

Japan have expanded their coaching structure, bringing in specialists in attack, defence, shooting and tactics. They have also added another important piece to the tactical puzzle in Ken Matsumoto, who has experience in both indoor and beach handball. His knowledge of beach handball is particularly useful in a four-a-side discipline, which has rules modeled after beach handball.

Japan have been able to look beyond wheelchair handball itself when developing the team's game, bringing in concepts from another four-a-side format while retaining the characteristics that made them dangerous in Cairo.

"We have brought in Ken Matsumoto, who has extensive experience in both indoor and beach handball. Since beach handball is also played with four players per side, he has brought many tactical ideas to the team," explains Kashiwaba.

 

But one thing really stayed the same for Japan, which have dazzled at times, bringing an unique style of played, modeled after their speed. Yes, speed remains central for this iteration of the team, after the Asian side has provided plenty of highlight reels throughout the previous edition.

"We believe our wheelchair-handling skills are among the best, and we again want to make the most of our speed and agility," says Kashiwaba.

But that identity was not easy to create. There are challenges all around the wheelchair handball programme in Japan. And it has been built through a training process that has had to account for a basic reality of Japanese wheelchair handball: the players are spread across a country more than 3,000 kilometres from north to south, and regular collective training is difficult.

In June, the national team gathered in Iwaki for a two-day camp. The players underwent physical performance testing, but most of the camp was devoted to tactical work. Rather than spending the entire time in full-team drills, the group also worked extensively through small-sided games.

"Because we live in different parts of Japan, our time together is very limited. In June, we spent two days in Iwaki. We collected data on each player's physical performance. Most of our time was devoted to team tactics, and we played many small-sided games," says Kashiwaba.

 

And that domestic competition which has been running for decades has become a crucial part of the process for the Japan wheelchair handball team, providing a platform for new players to be selected. The 2024 edition featured 12 teams in the four-a-side competition, while players who appeared there have subsequently moved into the national-team set-up.

"It is an important recruitment opportunity where we can identify young and new players. We first saw one of our current squad members at last year's national championship, so the competition is very important," says Kashiwaba.

The national team is also being built from a wider wheelchair-sport community.

Around half of the current players compete in wheelchair basketball as well, while some are also involved in wheelchair softball. For the federation, this does not represent players moving from one sport to another permanently. They compete in several sports throughout the year, bringing skills developed elsewhere back into handball.

"They have not actually switched sports or returned to wheelchair handball; they play multiple wheelchair sports throughout the year. This helps them develop their wheelchair-handling skills and brings speed and agility to our performance," Kashiwaba explains.

One player captures that multi-sport approach particularly well. Shinnosuke Morooka, who was one of Japan's leading performers at the 2024 World Championship, now has an athlete contract covering both wheelchair handball and wheelchair basketball. Morooka was the second best scorer in the competition, with 71 points, only one behind Egypt’s Magdy Talaat Abdo, who only leapfrogged the Japan player in the final.

"He now has an athlete contract covering both wheelchair handball and wheelchair basketball, fulfilling one of his dreams. If wheelchair handball becomes better known, the sport will attract more supporters and we can make the programme more sustainable," says Kashiwaba.

That sustainability is particularly important because Japan's story has never been simply about getting a team onto the court.

The 2022 absence exposed the difficulty of building a national team around the requirement for female players. Japan responded with several trial sessions before finding three women who could join the national team. That solved the immediate problem, but the federation knows recruitment remains a continuing task and is actively looking beyond handball to other wheelchair sports.

The result is a programme that is beginning to look wider than a single national team. And now Japan have another opportunity to show how far it has come.

The 4th IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship in Granollers will be a different proposition altogether from Egypt. Twelve teams from all six continents will take part, the largest field the World Championship has assembled, and Japan has been drawn in a group alongside the United States of America and Australia, the same USA side they pushed close two years ago. 

 

Kashiwaba sees the scale of the event as part of the point. "We need to continue expanding the global wheelchair handball family, so it is very meaningful for us to participate again," he says, adding that Japan's players and staff see themselves as ambassadors for the sport at home as much as competitors on court.

"I believe many participants at the 2024 championship came to recognise Team Japan, but more teams will compete in this year's World Championship. We want to show them that Japan is part of the global wheelchair handball family," says Kashiwaba.

Japan are encouraging their players and staff to act as ambassadors for wheelchair handball at home, using another World Championship appearance to raise the profile of a sport that has been developing domestically for more than 20 years.

The sporting objective, however, is unequivocal.

"It would be the result. If we can win a medal or improve on our previous ranking, more people may become interested in wheelchair handball in Japan."

Asked to imagine the athletes who showed up to Japan's very first wheelchair handball session, more than twenty years before any of this, reacting to the team now preparing for Granollers, Kashiwaba doesn't hesitate. "They would never have imagined that a Japanese team made up entirely of athletes with disabilities would one day compete on the world stage and play with such speed and skill."