time in the Olympic baseball tournament. They got off to a rough start, losing three of their first four games to Australia, Cuba, and the United States. After winning their next three, however, the Japanese were in a tie with the Nicaraguans for third and fourth places. Since Japan had beaten Nicaragua in head-to-head competition, they won the tie-breaker and faced the United States in the semifinals rather than the Cubans, which had not lost any of their 16 games in the 1992 and 1996 Olympiads. Japan defeated the United States to advance to the final, where they became the Cubans' 18th victim (Nicaragua's loss in the semifinals being the 17th win for Cuba). Men's Team Competition: Japan - Silver Medal (5-4) Basketball Women's tournament Preliminary round Quarterfinals Classification Round 5th−8th place 7th place game Beach volleyball Shoji Setoyama and Kazuyuki Takao — 17th place overall Boxing Men's Flyweight (– 51 kg) Kazumasa Tsujimoto First Round — Lost to Lernik Papyan (Armenia), 5-10 Men's Light Welterweight (– 63,5 kg) Fumitaka Nitami First Round — Lost to Eduard Zakharov (Russia), 6-21 Men's Middleweight (– 75 kg) Hirokuni Moto First Round — Defeated Tao Chen (China), 15-10 First Round — Lost to Tomasz Borowski (Poland), 6-11 Canoeing Cycling Track Competition Men's Points Race Masahiro Yasuhara Final — 2 points (→ 15th place) Mountain Bike Men's Cross Country Kyoshi Miura Final — 2:45:03 (→ 26th place) Women's Cross Country Kanako Tanikawa Final — 2:05.44 (→ 23rd place) Diving Women's 3m Springboard Yuki Motobuchi Preliminary Heat — 262.71 Semi Final — 210.00 Final — 296.04 (→ 6th place) Equestrianism Fencing Four fencers, one man and three women, represented Japan in 1996. Men's foil Hiroki Ichigatani Women's épée Noriko Kubo Yuko Arai Nanae Tanaka Women's team épée Nanae Tanaka, Noriko Kubo, Yuko Arai Football Men's competition Women's competition Gymnastics Judo Rhythmic gymnastics Rowing Sailing Shooting Softball Women's Team Competition Preliminary Round Robin Defeated Netherlands (3:0) Defeated PR China (3:0) Lost to United States (1:6) Defeated Canada (4:0) Lost to Australia (0:10) Defeated Puerto Rico (8:1) Defeated Chinese Taipei (5:1) Semifinals Lost to Australia (0:3) Bronze Medal Match Did not advance → 4th place Team Roster Juri Takayama Noriko Yamaji Haruka Saito Misako Ando Naomi Matsumoto Yoshiko Fujimoto Ikuko Fukita Noriko Harada Mayumi Inoue Chika Kodama Kyoko Kobayashi Kyoko Mochida Emi Tsukada Masako Watanabe Tomoko Watanabe Head Coach: Mitsutoshi Suzumura Swimming Men's 50 metres Freestyle: Yukihiro