Ahead of the first World Cup season Ladies-Skijumping.com takes a close look at all national teams. Today we continue this series with Japan.
Clearly the best Japenese is Sara Takanashi. In the last season she missed the top ten only twice. Her self-declared goal for all competitions is to be among the top six. For the upcoming season she has good chances to fulfil this goal very often. She is also one of the few candidates for a World Cup win.
Also Yuki Ito jumps on a very high level for years. For the 2011 Junior Worlds bronze medalist results among the best 20 are just standard. If she performs as well as in the last years, there is little doubt that she will also make make it to the top ten from time to time. The performance level of the two highly experienced jumpers Ayumi Watase and Yoshiko Kasai is just slightly lower then Ito’s. Both hardly ever miss the top 20 and are also able to take ranks among the top ten from time to time.
The former Canadian Atsuko Tanaka competed only at few Continental Cups after switching to the Japanese team. But her two CoC appearances this summer were quite promising. So we can be curious, what she will achieve.