TOKYO, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Japan's achievement of 16 gold medals in the swimming pool of the Asian Games in Doha showed that the country is recovering on its way back to be one of the superpowers in the swimming world, Japanese media commented on Saturday.

    Japan got the same number of gold medals as its Chinese rivals in swimming competitions in the Asiad, a noticeable improvement from the last Asian Games in Busan, said the Industrial and Economic Daily, which considered the progress qualifies for an optimistic expectation for better performance by Japanese swimmers in the world championship in 2007 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

    The article attributed the satisfactory scores mainly to the uprising of young Japanese swimmers.

    How to improve the scores on the freestyle is the primary problem to be addressed by the Japanese swimming team, the newspaper said, making a comparison between Japan's only one gold medal to Chinese and South Korean swimmers' setting new Asiad records on two items of the program.

    On its way of returning to the dominant group, the Japanese swimming team has to make a breakthrough on the freestyle, the report said.