By Donican Lam,
Alpine sit skier Momoka Muraoka has won two gold medals for Japan after two days of the Beijing Paralympics, but she will need to stay focused to keep her win streak alive with speedy German Anna-Lena Forster ready to pounce on any mistake.
Muraoka is ranked No. 1 in the world in two of the five events she has entered in Beijing, while Forster, who won two gold medals at the Pyeongchang Games, holds the No. 1 spot in the other three.
"Momoka is very strong. And I think there will be exciting races in the next week," Forster said after being beaten to gold by Muraoka in the women's downhill sitting at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre on Saturday.
After beating Forster by 0.82 second in the downhill, Muraoka's margin was even smaller at 0.11 in the super-G on Sunday. The fine line between gold and silver demonstrates that neither can make even the tiniest mistake in their remaining races.
The 25-year-old Japanese has expressed nothing but respect for her archrival, acknowledging from personal experience the intense training Forster must have also undertaken in the past four years.
"To be able to face off with (Forster) as an equal like this and win gives me just an incredibly happy feeling," Muraoka said.
The pair first competed against each other in their Paralympic debut in 2014 in Sochi, where Forster impressively reached the podium three times, winning two silver and a bronze.
While Muraoka could not do the same in Russia, her determination paid off at the Pyeongchang Games four years later, where she claimed the most medals a Japanese athlete has ever won in a single Winter Paralympic Games -- one gold, two silver and two bronze.
"In Sochi (Muraoka) was very young, and me, too. But she's improved a lot and she's very strong and that's cool," said Forster, who turns 27 later this year.
But even if Muraoka and Forster seem calm under pressure when at the starting gate, both admit to being full of nerves before any big race.
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"The desire to win a gold medal has become very big within me," Muraoka said. "But when I think about how I won't be able to win if I don't ski my best, if I don't ski aggressively, I am filled with anxiousness."
Muraoka was diagnosed at age four with transverse myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord. She took up skiing during junior high school when she saw Taiki Morii and the Japanese men's team train in Nagano Prefecture, and began training and following the group like a younger sister.
Forster, who was born without her right leg and with bones missing from her left leg, began skiing at the age of six when her parents and her brother, all passionate skiers, encouraged her to take up the sport.
"My parents give me a lot of support, and also the team. We have such a good team, and it's good to travel with them," she said. "They are very strong for me."
She said that training with a mental coach in the past has also helped her to keep her emotions under control before competing.
"That was good for me. I'm not that nervous and (tense). I feel better at the start now," she said.
Both their achievements have been recognized in their home countries, with Muraoka the flagbearer for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games and the team captain for the Beijing Games. Forster was a flagbearer for Germany at Friday's opening ceremony in Beijing.
Last year, Muraoka made her Summer Games debut in Tokyo in wheelchair racing, going back and forth between athletics and downhill skiing training.
But when Forster was asked whether she had any plans to do the same, she laughed and said, "No, I think not. I think that's too much, I'm okay to stick with skiing. That's enough."
