Noriaki Kasai (葛西 紀明 Kasai Noriaki, born 6 June 1972) is a legendary Japanese ski jumper. He started his World Cup career in 1989, and won his first World Cup event in 1992, which also counted as a victory in World Ski-Flying Championships. That was the year he took part in his first Winter Olympic Games in Albertville 1992. Two years later in Lillehammer, he won Olympic silver in the team competition, being alongside Jinya Nishikata, Takanobu Okabe, and Masahiko Harada.
Twenty years since then, he achieved his second Olympic silver medal in large hill competition in Sochi. This made him the oldest Olympic medalist in the history of ski jumping, winning a medal at the age of 41 years and 254 days. Two days later, he was the 4th man in Team Japan on large hill team event, and together with Reruhi Shimizu, Daiki Ito and Taku Takeuchi he reached 3rd place, achieving a team bronze. Those were the seventh Olympic Games in his career.
With 16 World Cup victories, 2 indivividual medals and 4 team medals at Ski Jumping World Championships, two Olympic medals and a Ski Flying Champion title, Noriaki Kasai is one of the most successful ski jumpers in the world.
Olympic results
Normal hill | Large hill | Team LH |
---|---|---|
Albertville 1992 | ||
31 | 26 | 4 |
Lillehammer 1994 | ||
5 | 14 | 2 |
Nagano 1998 | ||
7 | ||
Salt Lake City 2002 | ||
49 | 41 | |
Torino 2006 | ||
20 | 12 | 6 |
Vancouver 2010 | ||
17 | 8 | 5 |
Sochi 2014 | ||
8 | 2 | 3 |
Trivia
- Noriaki Kasai has competed in World Cup and World Championships for 25 years. That is an absolute record for a ski jumper.
- At the age of 41, he is still one of the most successfull ski jumpers in the world. On 11th January 2014, being 41 years and 219 days old, he won the World Cup event in Bad Mitterndorf, making himself the oldest World Cup event winner ever.
- Kasai has taken part in 7 Olympiads, what makes him, alogside with Albert Demtchenko, a record holder for Winter Olympic Games appearances.