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The Asian Rugby Championship, ''or ARC'', is an annual rugby union competition held amongst Asian national rugby sides, with in the ARFU region. The current format is Asia's third adapted Asian competition, as it is the successor to the original Asian Rugby Championship (1969-2007) and Asian Five Nations (2008-2014). Predominantly, the overall winner of the Tri Nations division is seen as the Asian champion, by virtue of that Division including the top three Asian teams in each year. Division 1 includes the next four teams and Division 2 including the next four. Division three is separated further to accommodate as many teams as possible in one Division. Each of the West, East and South Central division includes three teams. Japan is the most successful team in the combined competitions from 1969, securing 25 out of the possible 31 titles, and since 2005 Japan, have been consecutively the Asian Champions, a title they still hold, having won the 2014 Asian Five Nations. ==History== The Asian Rugby Championship was initially formed in 1969 when Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Thailand contested for the inaugural Asian Rugby Championship title. Japan were the champions on this occasion. It wasn't until 1982 when South Korea became just the second team to win the title in 8 attempts, and between 1969 and 2007, Japan and Korea were the only victors of the competition. The teams competing in that competition did range year to year, with as many as 12 teams competing, with other Asian teams joining the competition. Between 1969 and 1996, only a single Division split between 2 groups existed. But in 1998, a second Division was introduced as the game began to grow in Asia. In 2003, a second Asian competition was formed in the likes of Asian Rugby Series, a competition that ran along aide the Rugby Championship to help determine Division allocation. With more teams therefore competing, a third Division was added to the competition. This dual-competition ran until 2007, as in 2008, the ARFU merged both the Rugby Championship and Rugby Series into one tournament, The Asian Five Nations. In this competition, a promotion-relegation format was introduced, with the winner of Division 2 replacing the loser of Division 1, and the winner of Division 1 replacing the loser of the Five Nations. For its inaugural years, no Division 3 took place, though several regional Divisions were implemented across Asia. During the time of this competition, the main Five Nations Division was heavily dominated by Hong Kong and Japan who are the only three teams never to have been relegated to a lower divisions. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Asian Rugby Championship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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