Exclusive Interview with Legendary Ski Jumper Noriaki Kasai, 51: “I Can Still Do It, You Know?”
At the World Cup Sapporo, he broke his own Guinness record of 569 games played.
Further tragedy struck the Kasai family.’ Before the 1998 Nagano Olympics, their house caught fire and the mother was seriously injured with burns all over her body. Her mother died at the young age of 48 without any medical treatment. Her mother wrote letters to Kasai, who was in a slump at the time, from her hospital bed.
She wrote to Kasai from her sickbed, “Whenever I read her letters again, I still cry. I know you are going through a tough time, but this is life. I know you are going through a tough time, but this is life, and your mother is looking forward to seeing your child crawl up to you.
Even so, the goddess of victory did not smile on Kasai. Due to a previous injury, he was not a member of the team for the Nagano Olympics. Ironically, Japan won the gold medal in the team without Kasai.
I was so disappointed,” he said. On the night Japan won gold, I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t stop crying. At the time, I was very proud that I was the best. I was very proud of myself, and I had a strong rivalry with Japanese athletes. …… I was so angry when other athletes won that I sometimes said to myself, ‘Drop, drop,'” he said.
Because of his frustration at the Nagano Olympics, Kasai trained harder than ever before.
I trained harder than I had ever trained in my life. I thought that if I pushed myself this hard, I would surely win a gold medal.
However, at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, the results were disappointing. He finished 49th in the individual normal hill and 41st in the individual large hill. He finished not only with a gold medal, but with a podium finish that was not even close.
I was really depressed, thinking, ‘Oh, I can’t go on like this. In hindsight, I was probably too stoic. In response to my distress, the coach at Tsuchiya Home introduced me to a Finnish coach who was younger than me. His training methods were 180 degrees different from my style. Until then, I was thinking about jumping 24/7, and was anxious if I wasn’t training all the time. This way, my head got tired before my body did.
