That ever-growing bench of Japanese snowboarders runs deep. Jumps very high, too.
The country that has steadily been asserting mastery over the halfpipe took that show to the Winter Olympics big air contest on Saturday night, where Kira Kimura and Ryoma Kimata flew and stomped their way to a 1-2 finish to put their country on the top of the sport’s highest flying event.
“It’s not only the winter season, it’s the summer season, as well,” Kimura said in explaining Japan’s 365-day-a-year obsession with this sport. “We practice on the air bags. Our coaches are really good. We had a really good offseason, lots of preparation.”
Photo: AP
No single country has benefitted the way Japan has from the relatively new phenomenon of being able to practice using air bags to cushion falls during practice. It opens up new possibilities, both in the difficulty of the tricks riders can perfect and the time they can spend doing it.
For Japan, this had been showing up on the halfpipe — the sport’s signature event — for at least 12 years now. When Ayumu Hirano won the Olympic title four years ago, it marked has third Olympic medal. Even though he comes into these Games injured, a big crew from his country is ready to fill the void.
In a different sign of how deep and wide this Japanese team rolls, they placed all four of their riders into the 12-man final of big air, an event that was added to the Olympic program in 2018. The rider who led qualifying, Hiroto Ogiwara, finished last. The other one, Taiga Hasegawa, finished 11th.
Why is their country so good at this?
“We hate to lose,” said Ogiwara, who has won the last two X Games big air contests.
It was not a night of groundbreaking tricks on a hill that has not been generating breakneck speed this week.
NBC’s Todd Richards, a 1998 halfpipe Olympian, got caught telling the truth on a hot mic after the event was over: “That was so boring,” he said.
Japan can do boring, too. In a contest where the judges rewarded consistency, Japan was there to scoop up the medals. Kimura, whose best previous results were three second-place finishes in World Cup events, won with a score of 179.50, the total of his two best runs out of three.
After falling on his second try, he landed an all-or-nothing jump — riding backward, then spinning five-and-a-half times with a solid grab of his board between the bindings — to take the lead.
His teammate, Kimata — who won the world championship in this event last year — had a chance to beat him, but instead finished eight points behind.
“I’m not surprised at all,” American snowboard director Rick Bower said. “They have like 20 air bags in Japan, and they’re just pumping out amazing riders and it’s showing.”
Defending champion Su Yiming of China finished third to round out his collection of Olympic medals.
His silver came on home turf four years ago in slopestyle. Su’s hands touched the ground on his second jump, but that jump had an extra 90° of rotation and a tougher grab than 17-year-old Ollie Martin, so he vaulted past the American for the bronze.
“As a defending champion coming back here and having so much pressure, I’m proud of myself to come back and perform,” Su said.
A proud day for Japan, too. Before this, the country had accumulated a single bronze medal in big air, saving most of the celebrations for Hirano and Co on the halfpipe.
Now, it is starting to feel like the entire snow park is theirs.
“They have a ton of heart. They put their heads down and perfect things to the most minute detail,” New Zealand’s Lyon Farrell said after finishing eighth.
Ogiwara said he was proud of his teammates, a little disappointed in himself, but optimistic about the future. The very near future.
“I’m going to win the slopestyle,” he said.
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