Photo/Illutration Sara Takanashi’s second jump in the women's normal hill individual at the Beijing Winter Olympics held at the National Ski Jumping Center in Zhangjiakou on Jan. 5 (Nobuo Fujiwara)

BEIJING--Despite having achieved an all-time high of 61 World Cup ski jumping victories last month, Japan’s Sara Takanashi failed to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics here on Feb. 5.

She recorded an impressive 100 meters on her second jump in the women’s normal hill individual, but still finished in fourth place.

Even though she is only 25 years old, Takanashi has been at the top of her game for about a decade.

At 15, the Hokkaido native made her debut in the opening round of the inaugural women’s World Cup ski jumping in 2011.

“I took it for granted that I would win in international competitions,” she recalled.

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Sara Takanashi, second from right in the center, watches a monitor showing the results of the women’s normal hill individual at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Jan. 5. (Nobuo Fujiwara)

RIVALS IN AWE

As none of her rivals ever came close, a German ski jumping coach reportedly once asked Japanese sports writers how Japan was able to come up with such a formidable athlete.

Her rivals routinely took videos of her jumps at major events to scrutinize her performance and later learn how to catch up.

Takanashi trained even harder to dominate as a solo leader in international competitions.

But the Winter Olympics turned out to be too hard to crack.

She made her Olympic debut in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, when she finished in fourth place. Takanashi was 17 at the time and recalled she felt intimidated by the huge expectations placed on her.

She improved her record by winning bronze four years later at PyeongChang in South Korea.

Gradually though, she found herself being eclipsed by her rivals in Europe who boasted greater physical strength than she could muster with her spare 152-centimeter frame.

Still, expectations remained high that she would remain peerless as a world leader in women’s ski jumping, such was the image of her etched in people’s consciousness.

Takanashi felt rushed when she did not perform up to par, resulting in a vicious cycle.

“Ski jumping is not fun anymore,” she confided to friends when she suffered setbacks in World Cup events.

However, postponements of rounds in competitions due to the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly gave her time to reflect on the reason she took up the sport in the first place, when she was only 8 years old.

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Jumper Sara Takanashi displays a ski plate on which she drew pictures in November 2020. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

FREE AS A BIRD

“I liked a sensation of floating in the sky, feeling like a bird,” she recalled thinking back then.

There was no greater fun than ski jumping for her.

Takanashi has a reputation for adopting such a strenuous training regimen that people around her start to worry.

During the hiatus, she did something she had never done before: She drew pictures of wings, the sun rising from behind a mountain and her palms together on her treasured skis.

Takanashi felt regenerated afterward and was filled with a sense of gratitude for still being able to jump and stay healthy. It also deepened her respect for nature.

She chalked up a record-busting 61st career World Cup victory in Slovenia in January. 

Despite that astonishing achievement, Takanashi realized she was coming up against much younger competitors as she vied standing atop the medal podium.

“Many of my rivals were born in the 2000s,” she said with a giggle. “That makes me feel that I am getting really old.”

While her pursuit of gold in Beijing eluded her in the normal hill individual, she in true sportsmanlike fashion had only praise for the athletes who beat her.

“I just want to congratulate the other medalists from the bottom of my heart,” she said.

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