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From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow
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Japan faces uphill race to keep Nordic combined crown
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Japan's hopes of a third straight Olympic team gold medal were hit hard by a lackluster performance in the jumping competition, where it has excelled in the past, leaving the home team in fifth place with a 21-second deficit to make up if it is going to win again.
At the 1994 Lillehammer Games, Japan compiled more than 5 minutes in time advantage with their superior jumping and had little difficulty hanging on for the win -- 4:49 in front of second-place Norway.
Since then, however, the three-man format has been replaced by a four-man team and a new race formula translates jumping points into a smaller time advantage in the cross country leg.
The Japanese quartet went into Thursday's competition feeling fully confident about their jumping. But in the end, only one of their eight jumps went beyond the 90-meter critical point.
Finland, which has never won an Olympic medal in the Nordic combine team event, emerged the surprise leader with only a minimal advantage over Austria, Norway and the Czech Republic going into Friday's 4 x 5-kilometer cross country leg.
''Neither of my jumps were satisfying and I feel miserable about it,'' said Kenji Ogiwara, who was part of Japan's gold-medal squads at the 1992 and 1994 Olympics. ''I still want a medal and I'll just try my best.''
Japan team leader Takahiro Uesugi added, ''We're only halfway done. Tomorrow is tomorrow.''
Meanwhile, at the M-Wave indoor oval, local favorite Tomomi Okazaki, the 500-meter bronze medal winner, finished seventh in the women's 1,000 meters in 1 minute, 18.27 seconds for the best performance among Japan' four entries.
''I tried to bring the momentum I had by winning the medal into today's race. But it proved too much for me to do any better than my placing,'' Okazaki said.
Japanese national record holder Eriko Sammiya followed in eighth place 0.09 second behind. Shiho Kusunose ended up in 11th and Kyoko Shimazaki in 22nd, respectively.
At the White Ring ice arena, Ikue Teshigawara took sixth place in the women's 500 meters, while medal favorite Satoru Terao advanced to the quarterfinals of the men's 500 set for Saturday.
In the women's biathlon relay, Mami Homma had the host country in fifth place after the first 7.5-kilometer leg with a 25:31.2, but subsequent runners Hiromi Seino, Mie Takeda and Ryoko Takahashi each lost ground until Japan was left in 14th place with a 1:46:23.0 at Nozawa Onsen.
In Shiga Kogen, Japan slalom specialist Kiminobu Kimura finished in 25th in the men's giant slalom that had been postponed from the day before.
''I was able to ski comfortably. For me, the race went just fine because I was able to simulate how I would perform in the slalom,'' said Kimura, who aims to become Japan's first Olympic Alpine medalist since 1956 in Saturday's slalom event. (Kyodo News)
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Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun