winterolympicskijumping2018-blog

[winterolympicskijumping2018-blog]

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With a historic win on the World Cup circuit this season, double Olympic champion Kamil Stoch is in peak form as he aims to defend his ski jumping titles at the Pyeongchang Games. Stoch won his second straight Four Hills tournament in Bischofshofen, Austria, on Jan. 6 to become only the second ski jumper in the long history of the sport to win all four stages of the prestigious event. Germany's Sven Hannawald is the only other ski jumper to achieve the feat, winning all four stages 16 years ago. Stoch also won the Four Hills in 2017 when he was first in just one of the four stages.The 30-year-old Pole won both the normal and large hill events at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, adding to his world title on the large hill a year before.When Stoch won double gold in Sochi, he became just the third man to do so. Matti Nykanen of Finland won both golds in 1988. Switzerland's Simon Ammann won two golds in 2002 and 2010.Here's some of what to know going into ski jumping at the Pyeongchang Games:Slovenia's Peter Prevc won silver on the normal hill and bronze on the large hill in Sochi. While he has struggled this year on the World Cup circuit he will be banking on experience that includes winning the 2016 World Cup and the 2016 Four Hills.Germany's Richard Freitag has three World Cup wins so far this season but fell during the Innsbruck stop of the Four Hills and suffered a hip injury that could jeopardize his Olympic medal hopes.Andreas Wellinger of Germany has been on the podium five times this season and will also be a strong medal contender.Daniel Andre Tande. The 23-year-old has three World Cup wins overall and has performed well this season with three podium finishes. The Norwegian finished second at the Innsbruck stage of the Four Hills and could be set for a breakthrough in Pyeongchang.Another jumper to keep an eye on in Pyeongchang will be ageless wonder Noriaki Kasai. Known as "Legend Kasai" in his native Japan, the 45-year-old will be competing in his eighth consecutive Olympics.Kasai would become the sole record-holder for most Winter Olympic appearances if he competes in Pyeongchang. He currently shares the record with Russian luger Albert Demchenko.Kasai made his Olympic debut at the 1992 Albertville Games in France, and has appeared at every event since. He has earned three medals, including team silver at Lillehammer in 1994, and silver for the large hill and team bronze at Sochi.He is the oldest Olympic ski jumping medalist and the oldest ski jumping World Cup individual event winner.ermany edged out Austria in the team event four years ago and the two ski jumping rivals should provide some fireworks again this year along with powerhouse Norway.The ski jumping competition will take place at the Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre, which is located in the Pyeongchang Mountain Cluster.

The first Winter Olympics ever held in South Korea will kick off in Pyeongchang on February 9, 2018. Spectators at the open-air Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium will likely brave extreme cold temps and bitter winds, but they're in for a treat. Both ticket holders and fans at home will catch a traditional ceremony, albeit with a few surprise twists. Here's everything you need to know about this year's opening rites:When does it start?You'll either want tune in on Friday, February 9, at 6 a.m. ET for the live performance that starts at 8 p.m. KST, or sleep in a little later and catch it during primetime coverage on NBC at 8 p.m ET. The entire show is expected to last about two hours, so settle in.If you want to get a jump on the action, competition is actually scheduled to start the day before. The first rounds of curling and ski jumping will take place on February 8.Where will it air?American viewers can catch the spectacle on the NBC channel, but that's not the only spot to watch. Where is held?Both the opening and closing ceremonies will take place in Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium, which was specifically built for the elaborate performances to the tune of $58 million. The 35,000-person arena won't host any athletic events (or even stay standing after the games), but it's already attracting criticism for its design.The open roof — a choice made to save costs and speed construction — could expose competitors, world leaders, and fans to extreme cold. An internal organizing committee document predicted the potential real-feel temperature to be 7 degrees Fahrenheit, making it the coldest Olympics to date.A recent concert held in the venue led to six reported cases of hypothermia, so organizers are already planning stopgap measures to keep everyone warm, including distributing hot packs and blankets.What will Team USA wear?As the official outfitter, iconic American brand Ralph Lauren is charged with creating patriotic ensembles for the U.S. delegation. It's keeping them under tight wraps for now, but they have already unveiled the looks for the closing ceremony. Will Russian and North Korean athletes participate?Russia received plenty of sanctions for systematic doping during the Sochi Olympics, and some of them will be on full display during the opening ceremony. Approved Russian athletes will compete under the Olympic flag as the team "Olympic Athletes from Russia." The International Olympic Committee also placed restrictions on their uniforms, meaning the athletes will likely wear a subdued outfit featuring the Olympic rings.Given the breaking news that North Korea will participate in the games, specifics are still forthcoming. However, South Korean leaders did propose that the two countries march together under one flag like they did at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.The countries have walked separately at the 2010, 2012, and 2016 Olympics. North Korea did not compete in Sochi in 2014.The biggest event in winter sports is back as Great Britain aim to achieve their largest ever winter medals haul.

Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympic games, including when it is, where it is and how to watch it live in the UK.What are the Winter Olympics?The Winter Olympic Games is an international sporting competition held every four years for sports involving snow or ice. It was first held in 1924 in France.The last Winter Olympics took place in Sochi, Russia in 2014. The games included 98 events in 15 different winter sport disciplines. Great Britain won four medals, in curling, skeleton and women’s slopestyle.The Sochi 2014 Olympics were the most expensive in history, with costs more than three times that of London 2012.What sports are included?Winter Olympians will compete in the following sports: Curling, Ski Jumping, Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, Cross-Country Skiing, Women’s Hockey, Snowboarding, Speed Skating, Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, Luge, Short Track, Skeleton, Bobsled, Men’s Hockey and Nordic Combined. Where is it being hosted?The city of Pyeongchang, 100 miles east of Seoul in South Korea, will stage the winter games. This is South Korea’s first time hosting the winter games, although it did host the summer Olympics in 1988.When and where is the opening ceremony?The opening ceremony takes place in Pyeonchang on Friday, February 9 at 8pm local time (11am GMT).Who are the biggest British hopes for the games?

Last Winter Olympics in 2014 proved a great haul for Great Britain, which equalled its best-ever haul of four medals in 1924.Great Britain will be looking to outperform this personal best with around 60 athletes taking part in the 2018 games.Notable British names to look out for are speedskater Elise Christie, who won three gold medals and one bronze at the 2017 World Championships.Lizzy Yarnold won the skeleton Winter Olympic Gold in 2014 and returns in good form to defend her title.Elsewhere, the Team GB Women’s curling team won bronze in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games and will be looking to up their game.North Korea will send an orchestra of 140 members to accompany its Olympic delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Games next month, Seoul's Unification Ministry said.This was part of a five-point agreement between South and North Korean officials at a four-a-side meeting on Monday held to discuss Pyongyang's proposal to send a cultural troupe to the Games.The two Koreas agreed that the North's Samjiyon Orchestra would perform in Seoul as well as the northern city of Gangneung where some of the Olympic Games will be held, according to the Unification Ministry.North Korean performers last staged a show in the South in 2002 when a group of 30 singers and dancers visited Seoul for a joint event, according to Yonhap.Whether the orchestra will be joined by the North's Moranbong Band "needed confirmation," according to the ministry.The all-female Moranbong Band was formed in 2012 under the orders of the North's leader Kim Jong Un. The group performs a mix of Western pop songs and state propaganda music.Its leader Hyon Song-wol attended the Monday meeting as Pyongyang's vice chief delegate.Further details on the cultural troupe will be settled through follow-up talks and the exchange of documents, according to a joint statement disclosed after the meeting.It also said Pyongyang would send a team in advance to arrange the details of the performances such as the venues and stage equipment.The meeting comes after the two Koreas last week held high-level talks for the first time in two years, agreeing to facilitate the North's participation in the Olympics.The North had agreed to send a delegation of athletes, officials, performers and reporters to the South.Seoul said it would accommodate their visit with necessary support.Later on Monday, the ministry confirmed the two sides would hold working-level talks on the North's Olympic participation on Wednesday 10 a.m.Pyongyang said it would send three officials to the Peace House located in the truce village of Panmunjom, led by Jon Jong-su, Vice Chairman of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification.

South Korea had earlier suggested holding the comprehensive discussion on Monday but the North proposed discussing details of its cultural delegation instead, Dong-A Ilbo reported.North Korea, over the weekend, threatened it could go back on its decision to take part in the Olympics, after South Korean leader Moon Jae-in credited U.S. President Donald Trump with making inter-Korean dialogue possible."They should know that [the] train and bus carrying our delegation to the Olympics are still in Pyongyang... The South Korean authorities had better ponder over what unfavorable results may be entailed by their impolite behavior," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said on Sunday in its English report.The size of the North's delegation to Pyeongchang and the categories it can compete in are expected to be confirmed after an International Olympic Committee meeting on Saturday.The two Koreas will hold working-level discussions before the meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.Competitors launch themselves from the take-off ramp in an effort to fly as far as they can before making a touchdown in the landing zone. Five judges mark competitors for distance and style. The four events are: men's normal hill individual, women's normal hill individual, men's large hill individual and the men's team.The Winter Olympics in South Korea are just 30 days away and, for a change, there aren’t any major forecasts of doom and gloom emanating from the host country.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have been bragging about their nuclear buttons, but the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics can hardly be held responsible for that. As far as the Games themselves go, they seem to have been the cause for a major diplomatic ice-breaker on the Korean peninsula, with the North talking to the South for the first time in years and agreeing to send a delegation to the Olympics.And the sport venues actually look ready for competition.Could it be that the 2018 Olympics really have landed in one of the best communities in the world? That’s what locals are pitching with their Happy 700 campaign. Pyeongchang — which lies 130 kilometres east of the capital Seoul, and just 80 kilometres south of the heavily militarized border between North and South Korea — sits at an average altitude of 700 metres above sea level. And 700 metres, states the local tourism brochure, is “the best altitude for human biorhythm.”There have been numerous references to this healthy altitude in recent years with Korean officials touting how optimal it is for human life, raising animals and growing crops. Plenty of companies have used the slogan to sell products.There was a time that living up a mountain, rather than in a valley, would have been advantageous for protecting villages. And 7 is considered a lucky number, so 700 is luckier than, say, 600 or 800, explains Thomas Klassen, a York University political science professor with a research interest in South Korea.“If you live at the 700 altitude the air pressure is just going to be perfect — it’s been around as a belief and the Olympic committee played up on it,” he says. “There’s no science to it.”If there was, there might be a Canadian exodus to Medicine Hat, Alta., or Ontario’s highest point, Ishpatina Ridge, some 90 kilometres north of Sudbury, both of which are about 700 metres about sea level.“Cool that they’re pumping up that they live at 700 metres — maybe there’s a placebo effect,” says Greg Wells, an exercise physiologist at the University of Toronto.Athletes in the skiing, snowboarding and sliding sports who come from low-lying areas might feel a slight difference for a few days, he says.“If you’re not from Calgary (which sits at over 1,000 metres) and you’re going there, the lower pressure of the air drives less oxygen into the body so it just takes a little while for your body to adapt and absorb the same amount of oxygen that it would at sea level,” Wells says. “Typically, that takes three to five days.“It’s a micro-factor for athletes. It’s not going to be anything like at high altitudes but it’s a one-per-cent factor and probably something that’s worth thinking about.”When a city is chosen to host the Olympics, the country's government usually shells out hundreds of millions to build extravagant venues for the athletes and fans.

The 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea will be no exception.The Korean central government has taken on half of the $62.6 million in costs for building a new stadium for the winter games' opening and closing ceremonies in Pyeongchang. The country has also spent more than $1.5 billion on the Alpensia ski resort, which will serve as a main Olympic venue. In total, the 2018 Winter Olympics will cost South Korea about $12.9 billion, nearly double the amount the country projected when it won the bid in 2011.While some of the minimalist venues appear to blend in with the snow, others, characterized by sweeping curved lines, look ultra-futuristic.Kamil Stoch became only the second ski jumper to win each of the Four Hills competitions in the same season.Stoch, the reigning Olympic champion from Poland, had won events in Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, before securing victory in the first event in Austria at Innsbruck at the weekend.He joins Germany's Sven Hannawald, who won each event in 2002, as the only men to achieve the feat in the prestigious Four Hills tournament.The 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea are right around the corner! That means it's time to watch sports you might not have seen in four years. To help you feel at least a little more informed—either to impress your friends or fake your way through a conversation with an actual expert—SI will be providing rookie's guides to each of the 15 sports. These will be published daily, Monday through Friday, from December 4-22.What Is ski jumping?Ski jumping is what it sounds like — jumping while on skis. Though it sounds simple, it's a detailed event that is mesmerizing to watch. Competitors jump as far as they can from the launching zone to make a stable landing.The slopes are composed of the built-in ramp (inrun) and the actual hill. Skiers start crouched on the inrun, then begin moving, gaining speed to prepare for takeoff. At the takeoff point, the jumper actually jumps using solely their legs to do this. Timing is extremely important at takeoff to get a good distance. After takeoff, a jumper is usually in the air for five to seven seconds. Skiers are then evaluated on their landing. The distance scored is related to the construction point (K-point) which is a line drawn in the landing area to serve as a target for competitors to reach. After landing, there is the outrun portion of the course. There is a fall line at the end that is used as a judging mark. Anything from takeoff to the fall line will be judged, meaning a jumper who falls before the fall line will lose points. Jumps are evaluated by the distance traveled and the style of the jump. There is a more detailed scoring portion at the bottom.At this year's Olympics there are four events, meaning there will be four sets of medals — men's individual normal hill, men's individual large hill, men's team large hill and women's individual normal hill. Ski jumping has been around since the first jump in the early 1800s in Norway. Norwegian Sondre Norheim is considered by many as the father of modern ski jumping, winning what's been called the first competition in 1866. It made its way to the United States through Norwegian emigrants in the late 1800s. A new technique was pioneered by Thulin Thams and Sigmnud Ruud after World War I. This technique involved bending the upper body at the hip, leaning forward with arms extended at the front while skis are parallel to each other. Austria's Sepp Bradl used this technique to jump more than 100 meters in 1936. In the 1950s, Andreas Daescher held his arms backwards close to the body, leaning forward more. In 1985, Sweden's Jan Bokloev spread his skis into a "V" formation that is used today. This "V" technique was initially laughed at but proved extremely successful. As techniques have changed, so have the competition formats. Ski jumping has been included at the Winter Olympics since the first Games in 1924. The normal hill competition was included for the 1964 Games. In 1988, the men's team event was added as the third type of competition. Women's ski jumping first appeared in the Sochi 2014 games.The length of the hill has varied anywhere from 70 to 90 meters throughout the years, with the jump first being classified as a large hill at 70 meters until 1956. In 1960, the hill was standardized to 80 meters. But then in 1964, the normal hill competition was added, which was 70 meters. The large hill event then increased from 80 meters to 90 meters in 1968. But now, ski jumping competitions are referred to by their K-point distances rather than the run length prior to launching from the ski jump. Norway is the all-time leader in Olympic ski jumping medals. Norway's Birger Ruud is the top medalist in the normal hill with three medals — two gold and one silver. Switzerland's Simon Ammann and Finlands' Matti Nykanen are the top medalists in the large hill event with two gold apiece. Stefan Kraft holds the official record for the world's longest ski jump with 253.5 meters in 2017.At this point, it makes most sense to give mini-guides to each event. We'll break it into four sections, corresponding to each event. Former World champion Sarah Hendrickson and Michael Glasder clinched spots in the Pyeongchang Games on Sunday as the overall winners at the U.S. Olympic trials for ski jumping.Hendrickson was the women's winner with 263.4 total points after two jumps. She took the lead following a first jump where she covered 97.5 meters at 91.0 kph.It is the second trip to the Olympics for Hendrickson. She qualified for Sochi in 2014 but finished 21st overall after suffering a major knee injury in a training accident before the games.Hendrickson has undergone four knee surgeries since participating in the Sochi Games. Winning at the Olympic trials represents a particularly satisfying step for her in her comeback."It's pretty emotional just because the four years have been so tough," Hendrickson said. "This gives me confidence that hard work pays off, and if you keep working for your dream, then you'll get there. That is something that will stick with me for the rest of the life, and that's a really good lesson, too."Nina Lussi fell from third to fourth after suffering an injury on the landing of her second jump. She had to be taken off of the hill on a sled stretcher.Glasder qualified for his first Olympics after missing the cut in 2010 and 2014. He claimed the men's title with 270 points after two jumps. Glasder edged in front after covering 98.5 meters at 87.4 kph on his first jump."I was relaxed, feeling good, feeling like my technique was heading in the right direction," Glasder said. "Obviously, showed that today and I'm looking to build on that toward the Olympics."

Kevin Bickner gave Glasder a stiff challenge after he covered 100 meters at 87.3 kph on his second jump. Bickner finished second with 268.6 points. William Rhoads took third with 256.6 points.The 2018 Winter Olympics will take place from February 9 to 25, 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea.The host city was announced on July 6 2011 by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), beating Munich (Germany) and Annecy (France). The 2018 Games will be South Korea's second Olympics and the Republic's first Winter Games after hosting the Summer Games in 1988. PyeongChang will also be the third Asian city to host the Winter Games after Japanese cities Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.  A total of 90 teams have qualified at least one athlete to compete in this year's Winter Olympics, with 89 countries and the delegation from Russia taking part under the IOC flag. Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Malaysia, and Singapore are also scheduled to make their Winter Olympics debut.With the official Olympics schedule being released late last year, it was revealed that the competition for the 2018 Winter Games will begin on Thursday, February 8 with mixed doubles curling and ski jumping events starting on this day.  When are the Winter Olympics ceremonies being held?The opening ceremonies will be held on Friday, February 9 and the closing ceremonies on Sunday, February 25 after the traditional finale of the men's ice hockey final that will share the billing with curling and cross-country skiing.Both opening and closing ceremonies are expected to be held PyeongChang Olympic Stadium which is a temporary structure with a capacity for 35,000 fans.Where are the Winter Olympics?The 2018 Winter Olympics will be hosted in PyeongChang in South Korea, a city 80 miles east of capital Seoul and 60 miles south of the Demilitarised Zone separating South and North Korea. This will be South Korea's second time hosting the Olympics after Seoul hosted the Summer Olympics in 1988.Which sports are in the Winter Olympics?This Winter Olympics will see a total of 102 gold medal events, the most ever contested at an Olympic Winter Games.There are a total of 15 varied disciplines across the seven sports in the Winter Olympics competition that include traditional events like the bobsleigh, figure skating, ice hockey, luge, skeleton, ski jumping, snowboard and speed skating.Are there any new events for the 2018 Winter Olympics?The programme for PyeongChang 2018 includes six new events: snowboard big air (men's and women's), speed skating mass start (men's and women's), curling mixed doubles and the Alpine team event.The Winter Olympics schedule reveals that short track and speed skating sessions will take place in the evening, as well as the luge, ski jumping and biathlon which will occur under floodlights.All Alpine skiing competitions will be held in the day so that spectators are able to attend many events in one day and will be split between two venues. The speed events (downhill, Super-G and combined) will take place at the Jeongseong Alpine Centre and the technical events (giant slalom, slalom and the new team competition) at the Yongpyong Alpine Centre.What will the Winter Olympics medals look like?The PyeongChang 2018 medals have been created by designer Lee Suk-woo with a texture that resembles tree trunks, a symbol of the development of Korean culture and the work put into the Games themselves. The medals also feature diagonal lines and three-dimensional Korean alphabet consonants that stretch across the face. Overall, a total of 259 sets of medals have been cast for the Winter Olympics and the gold medal weighs the most at 586 grams.How to watch the 2018 Winter Olympics PyeongChang 2018 will be broadcast on BBC TV, Eurosport and digital platforms in the UK and on NBC and online for those in the US. The time difference for South Korea is nine hours ahead of London and 14 hours ahead of New York. What is the mascot for the 2018 Winter Olympics?The 2018 Winter Olympics mascot is Soohorang, a white tiger, chosen because of the tiger's association with Korean mythology and culture and is a symbol of trust, strength and protection.Will North Korea be competing?Despite backlash, it was announced that North Korea would be sending a delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games after officials met for high-level talks for the first time in two years. This delegation will include supporters, art performers, observers, a taekwondo demonstration team, journalists and athletes, who intend on marching with South Korea at the opening ceremony as they did in 2006.  The talks between North and South Korea were held in the Demilitarised Zone, otherwise known as the Panmumjom 'peace village' and five senior officials from each side attended. This came after Kim Jong-un revealed he was considering sending a North Korean team to the Olympics this year and the talks were scheduled after the US and South Korea agreed to delay their joint military exercises until after PyeongChang 2018. Will Russia be competing?In February Russia was banned from taking part in the Winter Olympics due to 'systematic manipulation' of anti-doping rules, according to the IOC. However, Russian athletes who can provide evidence that they are clean, will be 'invited' and will compete under the name 'Olympic Athlete from Russia* (OAR). Which British athletes are competing?Team Great Britain are expected to bring back more medals (one gold, one silver and two bronze) than they did from the Sochi 2014 Games. With short track speed skater Elise Christie winning three gold medals and one bronze at the 2017 World Championships, she could become the first British athlete to win more than one medal at a Winter Games.

Lizzy Yarnold could become the first British athlete to defend a Winter Olympic title after her gold medal win in Sochi, while freestyle skiers James Woods and Isabel Atkin have the potential to win Britain's first ever medals on skis. Katie Ormerod and Billy Morgan could win medals for snowboarding as well as the Team GB women's curling team, led by Eve Muirhead, that won world bronze last year.Which US athletes are competing?Team USA snowboarder Jamie Anderson stole the show at Sochi 2014 where she earned a gold medal in the slopestyle snowboarding event and Kelly Clark will also return, renowned as one of the most celebrated American snowboarders in history.  Nathan Chen is also one to watch after becoming the first male figure skater to ever land five quadruple jumps in a single performance, in addition to skater Adam Rippon, who has qualified for the first time this year.Which Australian athletes are competing?Snowboarder Jarryd Hughes will be returning to the Winter Olympics this year after ranking number two on the FIS World Cup Ranking, but finishing in 17th place at Sochi 2014.Matilda Friend will be joining her ice dance partner William Badaoui to realise their Olympic dreams and skier Britt Cox, the youngest athlete at the 2010 Games at age 15, will be the one to beat at PyeongChang 2018.Where and when did the first Winter Games take place?PyeongChang 2018 will be the 23rd Winter Olympics. The first ever Winter Games took place in 1924 in Chamonix, France after the IOC decided that there should be a separate 'International Winter Sports Week'. The Games were a success with more than 250 athletes from 16 nations competing in the five sports: bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing and skating.Where will future Olympic Games be held?After the 2018 Winter Olympics, the Summer Games will be held in Tokyo in 2020. The next Winter Games will be held in Beijing in 2022 and it has been decided that the next Summer Olympics will be in Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028.Ski jumper Noriaki Kasai is set to become the first athlete to compete at eight Winter Olympic Games after securing his place at Pyeongchang 2018. The Ski Association of Japan's qualifying period for male ski jumpers concluded at the World Cup event in Austrian town Bischofshofen on Saturday (January 6), when Kasai finished 48th. According to The Japan Times, the Association have ruled that he has done enough to earn a berth at Pyeongchang 2018, where the 45-year-old will make history if he competes.At Sochi 2014, Kasai and Russian luger Albert Demchenko became the first athletes to compete in seven Winter Olympics.Demchenko has been banned for life from the Olympic Games and was stripped of his Sochi 2014 men’s singles and mixed team silver medals after being implicated in the Russian doping scandal."My current goal is to win the gold medal at Pyeongchang," Kasai said in 2015, according to The Japan Times."When I reached 40, I decided I would call it quits when I turned 50. "But now Sapporo, my birthplace, is [potentially] bidding for the 2026 Games."I will be 54 by that time, but it is too big a chance to give up."

Kasai made his Olympic debut at Albertville 1992 and has competed at every edition since.He won the individual large hill silver medal and team large hill bronze at Sochi 2014.This came two decades after he claimed his first Olympic medal with team large hill silver at Lillehammer 1994.Kasai made his World Cup debut in 1988 in Sapporo.He has 17 individual World Cup victories to his name and has made the podium 63 times.Furthermore, he triumphed at the 1992 Ski Flying World Championships in Czech town Harrachov.The full Japanese men’s ski jumping squad for Pyeongchang 2018 is due to be announced on Thursday (January 11).Among the others expected to be named is Junshiro Kobayashi and brother Ryoyu.Daiki Ito and Taku Takeuchi are also likely to make the cut. Kamil Stoch of Poland rounded off his second straight Four Hills Tournament victory by also winning the last stop on Saturday.The man who swept the Sochi Olympic golds became the second ski jumper to win the annual competition by triumphing at all four stages, 16 years after Germany’s Sven Hannawald completed the feat.Hannawald, who was working at the event as a TV commentator, appeared in the finish area soon after Stoch’s winning jump and congratulated him.“I am positively surprised, happy, and a bit tired,” said Stoch, adding that the win was a “great reward” for him.After winning in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck, Stoch said that the prospect of matching Hannawald’s record had not put him under extra pressure.“It was big pressure this whole tournament, not just today. The most important was to stay focused on your job,” he said. “I just wanted to do my job, that’s all. I didn’t focus on winning. I focused on doing it right.”The 30-year-old Stoch won both individual events at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, adding to his world title on the large hill a year before.In 2017, he became the second Polish winner of the Four Hills Tournament after Adam Malysz took the title in 2001.On Saturday, Stoch had jumps of 132.5 and 137 meters to finish on 275.6 points, edging Anders Fannemel of Norway by 3.2 points.Andreas Wellinger of Germany was third with 270.5 points, and he finished runner-up to Stoch in the final Four Hills standings.With his fourth straight World Cup win, Stoch overtook Richard Freitag atop the overall standings with 723 points, 12 clear of the German.Freitag didn’t enter Saturday’s event having injured his left hip in a crash in Innsbruck two days ago. With a total of 11 medals, including three golds, ski jumping has provided rich pickings at the Winter Olympics for Japan, and the Games in Pyeongchang will provide another chance for them to excel in front of a prime-time Asian audience.The combination of strength, timing and technique makes it a sport that has long appealed to the Japanese, with the epicenter of ski jumping excellence located on the north island of Hokkaido.It was there that the gold-silver-bronze triumph, led by Yukio Kasaya, at the 1972 Olympics on home turf in Sapporo took place, cementing the status of the sport there.“I was starter at the top of the jump, next to all the jumpers. I was hoping Kasaya would win, but I never expected we’d take 1-2-3,” Kunitsugu Chiba, the coach of that 1972 ski jumping team, told Reuters.The event was held at the Miyanmori ski jumping stadium on the eastern slope of Mount Okura, where the sport is said to have been first practised in Japan.Students at the local university, who had seen it in Europe in the early 1900s and brought it back to Japan with them, built jumps around Sapporo to practise on.The jump used for the Olympics was originally built in the early 1930s with support from Prince Chichibu, a brother of Emperor Hirohito.By the time Sapporo hosted the 1972 Games, Japan had only won one medal (a silver at the 1956 Games in Turin) at a Winter Olympics, and the country was hungry for success.“Kasaya had the entire nation’s hopes on his shoulders, and he’d been winning recent competitions, so expectations were high,” Chiba said.Kasaya took gold in front of a packed crowd at the Miyanomori site, Akitsugu Konno took silver and Seiji Aochi took bronze in a clean sweep.The 1-2-3 finish ended up being the only medals the host nation won in Sapporo and the trio became the toast of the nation, creating a yardstick that generations of ski jumpers that followed have had a hard time measuring up to, despite a team silver in 1994 and gold at the 1998 event in Nagano.The 77-year-old Chiba said it’s hard to specify why Japan has enjoyed such relative success in ski jumping compared to other winter sports.“I’ve been asked that a lot, and it’s hard to answer. I think it might be because Japanese are detail-oriented,” he explained.”Running needs sheer physical strength. The cross-country coaches say that, that no matter how hard our athletes try, it’s hard to compete (against physically bigger foreigners).“Jumping is more technical, and not so much physical strength.”Despite its population of around 3,500, the small town of Shimokawa, some 220km from Sapporo, has provided more than its fair share of Olympic ski jumpers to the national team.Noriaki Kasai is set to compete in his eighth Olympic Games at the age of 45, while 23-year-old Yuki Ito is at the other end of the scale, expected to make her Olympic debut in Pyeongchang.“To nurture athletes in this sport, it’s very important that they be near ski jumps. You have to have snow, you have to have people living near snow, and you have to have the facilities to jump,” Katsuhiko Ito, father of Yuki and a member of the board of education in Shimokawa, told Reuters.“We have four jumps in our town. Some of them are just a 15-20 minute walk for elementary school students. It’s a sport that requires a major facility, so you need to have that nearby.”With the Winter Games taking place in Asia for the first time in 20 years, the stage is set for the Japanese to shine once again in the sport of ski jumping.

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