The possible gold medal count for Japan is between 42 and 58 at the Doha Asian Games, a senior official from Japan delegation said here on Monday.

"Four years ago in Busan, we are far behind in third place. This time, we hope we can have between 42 to 58 (gold medals)," said Hirosi Takeuchi, the press attache of the Japanese Olympic Committee.

China finished top of the medals tally with 150 gold while host South Korea was second with 96 and Japan settled for the third in 44.

"Our technical department conducted a survey and analyzed potential performance of the team and reported us that between 42 to 58 is a possible medal count in terms of gold," he said.

"This time we have 906 athletes and official here and we believe that we present a quite competitive team, particularly in swimming and judo, which are always our strong fields," he said, adding that men's and women's football are also medal hopefuls.

"And proudly, we present our athletes in all 39 sports," he continued.

This squad will comprise 352 male and 276 female athletes, but is nonetheless slightly smaller than the group of athletes last time in Busan where they also bagged 74 silver and 72 bronze medals.

Japanese top swimmer Kosuke Kitajima, double gold medalist in 2004 Athens Olympic Games, is coming back to his top form after a series of injuries following the Olympic Games.

Kitajima won both the 100m and 200m breaststroke in Busan, winning the latter in a world record time of 2:09.97.

Headed by Saori Yoshida, Japan's women wrestlers will try to reap gold in all four categories after taking home five golds at the world championships, and claiming medals in all categories they competed in.

Judo is also rated gold hopefuls by Takeuchi although they placed fifth in the men's competition at the most recent World Cup, and was third in the women.
 
(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2006)