Japan Can Jump For Joy Funaki, Harada Medal In 120-Meter Ski Jump

It starts as a low rumble, sounding as if a thunderstorm is approaching. Yet there are snow flurries flying in the air and you see the breath of 65,000 Japanese turning into puffs of steam in the cold morning air, so it cannot be thunder.

As a tiny speck of silver bends into a crouch, way up on top of this hill, 120 meters high, so far up that from the ground it looks as if this silver ball is touching the clouds, the rumble grows louder, throatier, human. It is the sound of a nation reaching to the sky, extending its hands and its hearts to that silver speck, willing that ski-jumper to speed, speed, faster and faster, and then begging that silver speck to rise, rise, higher and higher and to fly, fly, longer and longer.

They held the men’s individual 120-meter Olympic ski-jumping contest - the “Big Hill” they call it - Saturday. Under the most enormous pressure imaginable, two Japanese men accepted in different ways the burden their countrymen placed on their shoulders.

Kazuyoshi Funaki, a 22-year-old who had won a silver medal last week in the 90-meter jump, took the gold with a final jump of 132.5 meters and a total of 272.3 over two rounds. Finland’s Jani Soininen, who had won the gold in the shorter event, accepted the silver with 260.8 points and a final jump of 126.5 meters.

But it was the bronze medal that was both mourned and cheered by the Japanese fans who had started crawling up the mountain before dawn and also by the man who won it. For this medal was earned by Masahiko Harada, “Happy” Harada as he is known for his beatific smile.

Harada threw himself down the hill on his second jump, eschewed all thoughts of style or safety, launched himself with a scary ferocity and landed so far past the measuring markers that no one knew how far he had gone. It turned out that he had flown 136 meters, a hill record.

This sport, though, is judged on style as well as distance. Harada had thought his medal was silver up to the moment he tried to step on the silver-medal podium spot. It was then Harada was gently told his medal was bronze, that his style points had been so poor that the Finn had kept the silver because Harada’s total of points and distance was 258.3.

The 29-year-old team captain, who has been most remembered for a terrible Olympic embarrassment instead of Olympic triumph, ended up in tears for a moment and afterwards berated himself for his poor first jump.

“I made a mistake in the first jump,” Harada said. “I needed four more meters. I couldn’t do my best jumps. I was very disappointed.”

In 1994 in Norway, Harada had needed only a tiny jump, a jump that even an American ski jumper could accomplish, and the Japanese would have won the team medal and become heroes forever. Instead Harada barely made it off the hill, turned in the absolute worst jump of the event and his team received the silver instead of the gold. Harada had been pictured slumped into the snow as the exuberant German winners celebrated around him.

He came home for the 1998 Olympics, smiling still, always, saying that no, the expectations of this intense, tiny nation, did not stifle him but propelled him off the hill. And then he led after the first round of jumping Wednesday, that rumble had become the sound of the avalanche and it seemed, again that Harada was buried under that avalanche for he fell from first to fifth with a mediocre second jump.

It was the opposite Saturday. Harada soared in his second jump. He moved up in the standings this time instead of down. He climbed from fifth into third place and when Soininen, the final jumper who had led after the first round, had landed and the Japanese fans thought they realized what had happened - that their jumpers had won gold and silver, the mountain shook. The snow quivered. Except that no score had been posted for Harada. The calculations to include the style points took some time. It wasn’t gold and silver, it was gold and bronze.

Funaki, who had stamped himself as a top contender earlier this year by winning the prestigious Four Hills competition, raised his skis high into the air then ran to the ropes to hug the Japanese coaches and trainers. Harada did, what else? He smiled. He took off his helmet and smiled to the crowd, to the world. He hugged Funaki and he hugged his skis. But then his hugging became slumped shoulders and for a moment there were tears.

But by the time the Japanese anthem began playing for his teammate, Funaki, whose final jump had been both long but also spectacularly stylish, Harada’s face had changed again. Harada managed to, what else? Smile. Happily.