JPN - Fast and furious Japan turning heads at U17 World Championship

RODEZ (2010 FIBA U17 World Championship for Women) - Japan, a team that does not feature too regularly in basketball world championships, has been one of the revelations at the U17 World Championship for Women.

Following a lopsided defeat against Russia (93-68) to open the tournament on Friday, the Japanese have bounced back in impressive fashion to beat Canada (87-80) and Turkey (80-60) over the weekend thanks to two key components: energy and speed.

"Unlike China, we do not have tall players. So we play with the qualities that we do have. We make the most of our mobility and speed and we tell our players to play with great intensity," said Japan team official Hiroko Tanabe.

"This world championship is a great opportunity for our players to measure themselves against some of the world's biggest players - quite literally."

And that is a fact as Japan's tallest player, Yuki Miyazawa, stands only 181cms tall, quite a bit shorter than China's Liting Zhang (199cms) and American Imani Stafford (204cms), two of the tallest players in the championship.

However, Tanabe is quick to point out that a lack of height is more problematic and penalising in the men's game than in the women's.

"If you don't have a tall player in the men's game, it's very hard to impose yourself and be dominant," she argued. "With girls, what you lack in height you can compensate by relying on other qualities like speed and aggressiveness."

Those are exactly the intangibles that Japan has used to great effect so far and which sees them ranking second behind the USA in Group A and with a very good chance of advancing to the last eight.

The success has made the Japanese girls look at the bigger picture and look down ahead to what may be in years to come.

"The World Championship is a great experience to prepare the future generation. These players are aiming to make the senior team and perhaps one day compete in the senior World Championship or the Olympic Games," Tanabe added.

Quicks facts about Japan
Japan is an archipelago consisting of four major islands: Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. It has another 6,848 adjacent smaller islands.
With 127 million inhabitants, Japan ranks as the 10th largest population in the world.
While sumo wrestling is the national sport, baseball is the most popular spectator sport in the country.
Japan hosted the 2006 FIBA World Championship.