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From the Olympics Toward Tomorrow
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Children's dreams up in air
- Bringing a junior-use ski jump to completion proves difficult
Small change jingled within a tin box. Upon opening it four or five 10,000 yen bills were discovered.
The Hakuba Ski Jump venue in Hakuba Village will become just one of the staging sites for next year's Winter Olympic Games. Village citizens were at the January 1996 74th All-Japan Championships were selling soup and coffee early in the morning from a tent next to the stands raising donations. The contributions were being collected by the Hakuba Middle School Ski Jumping Club Preservation Society for support to build a junior-use ski jump.
They were able to collect 160,000 yen in contributions in two days. Society President Tadaaki Harada (age 51) and the group counted the money and placed it inside a tin, taping the sides to protect it from loss.
Donations and assistance were provided by top athletes Masahiko Harada (sponsored by Snow Brand), Kazuyoshi Funaki (Descente), Noriaki Kasai (Chizaki Kogyo) who exclaimed, "If it's for the kids!" But now the fate of the donations is up in air. For the time being the money has been moved from the tin and is now kept in a bank account.
After many months of contributions, Harada took the money to the Village offices in the spring of 1996 and said, "We would like to see this money be used for construction of a jump." But Village Director of Education Takashi Yoshizawa would not accept the tin that was presented to him explaining, "We are considering constructing a new jump, but the location and other details have not been confirmed. Under the circumstances we cannot yet accept donations. For the time being please wait until the Olympics are finished."
Harada left with a feeling inside that they had been "turned away at the gate". He wondered, "Why did we try so hard."
Members of the Hakuba Middle School Junior Jump Team practice indoors. They say that "other teams have been getting better and better" since losing their nearby jump in Nakiyama. (Northern Village Training Center)
Collections originally started with hopes to build "another practice area for the children." There had been a 50m junior ski jump in Hakuba Village at Happoh-one's Nakiyama slope. But that closed before the beginning of the 1995 season. The old jump site was then changed into an alpine practice area. The reason for this was because a lease on the jump`s land would soon be up and was not likely to be renewed.
The village, which previously thought that the lease would not be renewed, was studying other possibilities. At an assembly meeting in June 1993, the Village Mayor at that time had mentioned a plan to build a junior-use jump at the site of the already completed Hakuba Ski Jump. But the Prefecture filed a claim stating that the new jump would damage the area's scenery. The village therefore had to pass on building them both at the same site.
At the end of last year (1996) a few students from the Hakuba Middle School Junior Ski Jumping Team gathered at the Northern Village Training Center in Moriue District after classes had finished. Six people participated in practice at the gym by doing "stepping" and other mid-air exercises. "Hey, walk only on your tiptoes," shouted Coach Minehisa Sakurai (age 27).
The team participated in the 33rd Nozawa Onsen Youth Ski Competition on January 7th. But they didn't have the chance to practice jumping from a real jump this season until the end of 1996.
The number of participants in the club has increased since the decision to hold the ski jump events in Hakuba was announced. In 1995 members numbered fifteen, including seven who were only freshmen. But since the hope of building a junior jump in the village has been lost that number has been decreasing, with now only 11 members. Normally they can only practice indoors, and in order to do so at a jump site they must go to nearby Otari Village or stay overnight at Nozawa Onsen Village.
The Hakuba Village Ten-year General Plan (from fiscal year 1996) includes a proposal to build a junior-use medium-hill jump. But with the current financial problems it is facing, seeing it fully materialize will be an uphill battle.
Sapporo has raised many athletes with the jump it built and youth clubs it was able to form thanks to the opportunity to host the Olympics. In Hakuba however there is still the basic question of why they Olympics are being held there in the first place.
Parents of members of Hakuba Middle School's Ski Jumping Team plan to continue raising contributions at the upcoming FIS World Cup test events.
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Copyright 1999 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun