Team with Korean roots wins famous Japanese high school baseball tournament | Sports

Kyoto International High School won the coveted championship on Friday by defeating Kanto Daiichi High School 2-1 in the 10th inning. The biennial tournament, held in the spring and summer, is one of the most watched sporting events in Japan.

The championship will be held at the Hanshin Koshien Stadium in the western Japanese city of Nishinomiya.

The victory will be followed throughout Japan, but also in South Korea – two countries with strong baseball cultures but a historical divide.

The result was intended to draw attention to the improving relations between the two Asian neighbors, but it also sheds light on the bitter past between the two countries, which dates back to Japan's brutal colonization of the Korean peninsula, which ended with Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945.

In a statement, an organization of South Korean residents said the victory “united the hearts of all ethnic Korean residents of Japan and served as a bridge between South Korea and Japan.”

The statement from Mindan, the Korean Residents Union in Japan, noted that the game had also caught the attention of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Kyoto International High School was originally founded in 1947 for the Korean population of Japan, many of whom were brought to Japan as forced laborers during Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.

The school is now recognized by the educational authorities in both Japan and South Korea. About a quarter of the students have Korean roots.

Kyoto International also reached the semifinals of the tournament in 2021.

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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