Japan is having a dry spell at Turin. No medals as of this writing.
So far, the most media attention in Japan seems to be focusing on someone who is not even Japanese: Rena Inoue, a naturalized US citizen. She competed in pair figure skating with her partner John Baldwin. Rena did not win a medal, but she did very well and impressed all of us.
Perhaps more amazing is that she had competed for Japan at the 1992 and 1994 winter Olympics as a figure skater. She was preparing for Nagano in 1998, but her dad died of lung cancer and she did not appear. She also contracted lung cancer, but recovered. She went to the US to train and found her figure skating partner (also her real-life partner). She obtained US citizenship last year and now she is on the US Olympic team. Incredible, after 12 years, another Olympics. She is Japan’s first Olympic athlete to have represented two countries, Japan and the US.
Many past Japanese Winter Olympic stars are in Turin. Speed skater Hiroyasu Shimizu, female moguls Tae Satoya (who emerged from a well-publicized, drunken and sex-related nightclub brawl), speed skater Tomomi Okazaki, and ski jumper Harada. These are household names in Japan ever since their ultimate glory in Nagano 1998. However, they are not doing so well in Turin. It’s likely that this is the last time we will be seeing them in an Olympics.
Japan really needs new stars at Torino. We need something to look forward to in Vancouver. It’s a stark contrast to Japan’s “medal rush” at Athens 2 years ago.