By Joel Fitzpatrick,
Japan's hopes of a record medal tally at the Beijing Winter Games rest on the shoulders of its snowboarding high-flyers, while Yuzuru Hanyu's stellar recent nationals performance on return from injury also puts Olympic history within his grasp.
Names like Yuto Totsuka, Ayumu Hirano and Ruka Hirano in the men's snowboard halfpipe as well as female riders Reira Iwabuchi and Kokomo Murase in the same event will all challenge for the podium at the games that begin on Feb. 4, with many showing they are still contenders despite the past two years' coronavirus disruptions.
Some of the female riders will double up in the slopestyle event with medals also likely, while others will go large at Beijing's spectacular Big Air Shougang venue in pursuit of a Japanese snowboard first.
Hanyu is chasing his third straight Olympic men's gold medal, a feat that would put him equal with Sweden's Gillis Grafstroem, who did it in the 1920s, as the only other man to three-peat in singles.
An ankle injury cast a dark cloud over Hanyu's Olympic prospects, but his return, with a game-changing quad axel apparently in his repertoire, set him on course for a head-to-head showdown with American Nathan Chen -- a skater who needs an Olympic gold to fill the last remaining vacancy in his trophy cabinet.
Japan has never won a snowboarding gold medal at the Olympic Games with Ayumu Hirano having gone close twice with silvers in 2014 and 2018.
Having attempted to make his mark in skateboarding at the Tokyo Summer Games, but failing to make the men's park final, Hirano has returned to the snow.
He demonstrated in late December he has not wasted any time in again finding his bindings when he landed the first-ever in-competition triple cork -- or three off-axis flips -- at December's Dew Tour halfpipe event in Copper Mountain, Colorado.
"They can count on so many good riders, especially in halfpipe," Italian journalist and broadcaster Giacomo Margutti recently said of Japan's team.
"In Beijing, everyone in the know expects an all-Japanese podium sweep in the men's snowboard halfpipe event with Yuto Totsuka, and Ayumu and Ruka Hirano, or a couple of others."
"Three of them already came up with never-been-done triple corks (when training at the Stomping Grounds session in Switzerland), the rest of the field is stopped at 'only' two."
Margutti, who has covered the World Cup tour on behalf of the International Ski Federation for a decade and has interviewed snowboard gold medalists at the last four Winter Olympics, told Kyodo News the legendary American Shaun White or Australian Scotty James are the only riders standing in the way of the Japanese halfpipe juggernaut.
"In the women's big air event there are two Japanese, Reira Iwabuchi and Kokomo Murase, who can definitely aim for gold," Margutti believes. "And in the men's as well, there are at least three kids who can get a medal."
"All in all, the Japanese snowboard team will be stronger than ever at these Olympics," he said.
This prediction has so far played out on the World Cup tour, with the Hiranos and Totsuka taking three of the top four in the world halfpipe standings while Iwabuchi and Murase are the top two in the women's overall park and pipe standings.
In slopestyle, Murase and Miyabi Onitsuka went one-two in the first event of the season held on Saturday in Calgary, Canada. The former's clean run, featuring back-to-back 720s on what she described as a "very difficult" course, brought her first World Cup slopestyle win.
With the snowboarders looking like they will hold up their end for Japan, attention turns to the other sports where athletes must shine if the nation is to win a record number of medals.
In multiple medal table forecasts, the Olympic sports analytics gurus at Nielsen's Gracenote have predicted Japan will reach a record medal total above the previous high of 13 set in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
They believe Hanyu will miss gold, but say their algorithm does not factor in national championships where, just over a week ago, he barely missed landing the quad axel that could separate him from the field in Beijing.
"I felt as though I was about to cry even before the six-minute warm-up," Hanyu said after his first performance of an injury-hit season, adding he was relieved to put together programs that garnered a 322.36-point total which is significantly higher than any score recorded in international competition this season.
Hanyu is chasing Grafstroem's Olympic gold-winning record set between 1920 and 1928. Hanyu is only the third man behind Austrian Karl Schafer in 1932 and 1936 and American Dick Button in 1948 and 1952, to have repeated since.
Pyeongchang men's silver medalist Shoma Uno is also eyeing another medal as is Yuma Kagiyama, while on the women's side a podium finish is less likely with Kaori Sakamoto, fresh off scoring 234.06 to secure her second national title, facing stiff competition from a trio of world-leading Russian skaters.
Japan can also expect medals in speed skating, ski jumping, Nordic combined and freestyle skiing.
Speed skating delivered three of Japan's four gold medals in South Korea, and in China some of the same athletes will feature.
Miho Takagi has won three 1,500-meter World Cup events in the current season while taking one win over 1,000, leaving her in a great position to add to the medal of each type she won in 2018. She is also likely to join the team pursuit squad in its Olympic title defense.
Joining Takagi as a 1,000 contender is Nao Kodaira. The sprint specialist will be looking to double up again after winning the 500 gold in Pyeongchang and silver over 1,000. She has not dominated either event on the World Cup this season, but has logged wins and multiple podiums in both to make sure she remains in Olympic medal contention.
The most surprising Japanese speed skater of the season has been sprinter Tatsuya Shinhama. With two early World Cup wins he forced his way into the Olympic medal conversation, but has flagged as the season has progressed.
If he can regain his edge, he has a chance to become Japan's first male medalist in the sport since 2010.
Sara Takanashi has achieved much in her ski jumping career, including 61 World Cup wins, but Olympic gold has eluded her. With only one victory so far this season, her wait may go on.
Ryoyu Kobayashi, the most successful men's jumper in Japan's history, looks likely to beat her to it. Since mid-December, he has racked up four World Cup wins and some momentum that could carry him to the top of the Olympic podium.
Moguls skier Ikuma Horishima will have to overcome Canada's reigning Olympic champion and six-time world champion Mikael Kingsbury if he is to win his first gold, while Akito Watabe, a silver medalist at the 2014 and 2018 Games, has some major Nordic combined competition to surmount in his chase for gold.
Related coverage:
Pandemic fears grow 1 month ahead of Beijing Olympics, upset China
Olympics: Sapporo could lock up 2030 Winter Olympics in 2022: sources
Japan will not send senior officials to Beijing Olympics
