Japan's Ski Jump Take The Home Advantage - Nagano 1998 Winter Olympics

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Takanobu Okabe, Hiroya Saito, Masahiko Harada and Kazuyoshi Funaki all put on incredible displays for Japan in the ski jumping event at the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games.



The Sapporo 1972 Games put high expectations on the Japanese team to perform once again at a home Winter Games.

The individual events had given the hosts medals one medal in each of the three colours out of six possible medals (with Kazuyoshi Funaki taking the large hill gold), but hadn't yet offered the public with the same spectacular display as the Japanese clean sweep in Sapporo.

Still, there was one event left which was not feature on the Olympic programme until the 1988 Winter Games: the team large hill competition.

Four years earlier, Japan had won the ski jumping team silver medal in Lillehammer after having an early lead, leaving the public anxious for a better result. Once again the pressure was on Masahiko Harada who was considered responsible for the unfulfilling result in 1994.

This time there were no doubts that Harada - alongside Takanobu Okabe, Hiroya Saito and Kazuyoshi Funaki - had delivered as Japan took the gold medal to the delight of the 40,000 fans present at the venue.

Find more about the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games: http://www.olympic.org/nagano-1998-wi...
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