Four years after falling short of expectations, Ikuma Horishima exorcised some Olympic demons by winning a Beijing Olympic Games bronze medal the hard way.
Entering the games in China, Horishima was considered the most likely to challenge Canadian moguls monolith Mikael Kingsbury, but when the Japanese faltered at the first qualifying hurdle two days ago it looked like history could repeat from his 2018 debut.
In a show of great resilience, the 24-year-old from Gifu Prefecture fought his way through a do-or-die qualifying run and three finals to earn his first spot on an Olympic podium.
"After the first qualifying run, I got really down on myself and was quite negative waiting for my opportunity to do better," Horishima said soon after collecting his bronze medal.
"Yesterday was very hard and this morning, too."
Despite this, he managed to keep his internal struggles from impacting his skiing, with his four trips down the Genting Snow Park slope on Saturday garnering incrementally improving scores.
A 76.19-point effort in second qualifying had improved to 81.48 points by the third final, with his skiing getting more aggressive each pass.
It seems the closer to his goal he got, the more rational about his situation he became.
He said he was thinking, "If I couldn't pull off at least a podium, it would be like 'I am not even competing, like what were these last four years for.'".
But even after pulling bronze from the jaws of disaster, he could not help but think what might have been.
"When I finished, and I thought to myself 'I am on the podium,' I wanted to pump my fist," he said.
"I had mixed feelings, though. I was the one who messed up (at the start), but at the same time, I felt I'd achieved something great."
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Olympics: Ikuma Horishima takes moguls bronze, Japan's 1st medal in Beijing
