Fresh from lifting the 2016 COSAFA Castle Cup in Namibia following a 3-2 victory over Botswana, the South African Men’s Olympic squad is travelling to Japan on Sunday (26 June) for an international friendly match against the host nation. The South Africans have a long trip ahead of them.

They will fly out of OR Tambo International Airport at 17h20, and will land in Hong Kong 13 hours later. Owen da Gama’s charges will then board a connecting flight to Nagano Prefecture, followed by a three-hour bus drive to the city of Matsumoto.

Star shuttler Kento Momota was axed by Japan's badminton team for the Rio Olympics after he gambled at an illegal casino, according to local officials.

SA Rugby on Wednesday announced that Dawie Theron has accepted a contract to coach the Docomo Red Hurricanes in Japan and will not be available for a seventh season as coach of the Junior Springboks.

Theron will vacate his position following the World Rugby Under-20 Championship in Manchester, England, which kicked off earlier this week.

The U.S. Women's National Team defeated Japan 2-0 on goals from Julie Johnston and Alex Morgan in front of 23,535 fans - a record attendance for a WNT game in the State of Ohio - in a match that was abandoned in the 76th minute due to inclement weather.

After a thrilling 3-3 draw last Thursday in the teams' first meeting since the historic 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup Final, the USA put in a dominant performance in the second leg of this two-game set, controlling large swaths of the game and generating numerous goal scoring opportunities while holding firm defensively. The USA held Japan to just two shots on goal.

The U.S. Women's National Team will face Japan on June 2 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado, in the first of two June matches. The event will start at 7 p.m. MT and will be broadcast on FS1.

The game at the home of Major League Soccer's Colorado Rapids will mark the first meeting between the teams since the historic 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup Final in Vancouver, B.C. on July 5 of last year. The USA won 5-2 on the strength of Carli Lloyd's record-setting hat trick to claim its record third Women's World Cup title.

Hosts Japan led from start to finish to earn an historic home victory at The Queens presented by Kowa, an innovative new match play tournament between four of the world’s leading women’s golf tours: the Ladies European Tour (LET), Australian Ladies Professional Golf Association (ALPG), Korean Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) and LPGA of Japan (JLPGA).

After going into the final round at Miyoshi Country Club with an eight point lead over Korea, the Japanese team ended with 41 points, just three ahead of the Koreans, who won eight of their nine singles matches. The LET team finished third with the ALPG in fourth.

The Canadian Davis Cup team is one win away from clinching its Davis Cup by BNP Paribas World Group first-round tie against Japan after Daniel Nestor (Toronto) and Vasek Pospisil (Vancouver) defeated Go Soeda and Yasutaka Uchiyama 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 on Saturday at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre on the campus of University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

It was an up-and-down affair, with neither team able to hold onto their momentum from set to set. Canada jumped out to the one-set lead by breaking at 6-5 in the first set but Japan rapidly came back with an early break in the second set. The third and fourth sets followed in similar fashion, with neither pair able to overcome early service breaks by their opponents. The two teams ended up with similar serving statistics, with Nestor and Pospisil winning 75 per cent of their first serve points, 56 per cent on their second serve, and going four-for-11 on break chances compared to 72 per cent for Soeda and Yasutaka on their first serve, 47 per cent on their second, and four-for-12 on break point opportunities.