The “Suzuki Plan” includes launching campaigns to identify athletes who may be in with a chance of a medal at Tokyo 2020 outside of the sports which have traditionally brought the country success, such as wrestling and judo.

Both the Japanese Olympic Committee and Japanese Paralympic Committee (JPC) will have key roles to play in the roadmap as they will be tasked with overseeing the development programmes of each National Federation.

It will also feature increased funding for female athletes in the Asian nation, which will be used to send coaches abroad for training to improve their skills.

Improving competitiveness in Japanese sports is another target of the plan, as well as installing initiatives to ensure the nation’s athletes perform at their best at Tokyo 2020.

The announcement comes after Japan produced their worst-ever performance at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro last month.

An inquest is now due to be held after the country failed to win a gold medal and finished in 59^th place on the medal table.

At Rio 2016, Japan won 10 silvers and 14 bronzes but it was the first time ever that they failed to win a gold medal.

Japan returned from the Olympics with their best-ever haul of 41 medals, 12 of which were gold, but the number of sports they were won in dropped from 13 at London 2012 to 10 at Rio 2016.

They won gold medals in judo, gymnastics, swimming and wrestling, as well as a first-ever Olympic badminton crown, during the Games in the Brazilian city.

“I want to have expectations of rousing those sports Japanese can do well in beyond our bread-and-butter ones,” Suzuki, an Olympic gold medallist in the 100 metres backstroke at Seoul 1988, said.

“We have a lot of talent that is still lying dormant.”

The Sports Agency has vowed to place greater significance on assisting sports which they feel are more likely of delivering medals at the Games during the “final spurt period” between 2019 and 2020.