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| 2005.3.7 Salomon Advisory Staff, Hitoshi Kimura |
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The place where I first met the skier Akira Sasaki 14 years ago was the Salomon Cup, a gateway for the junior skiers held during the New Years every year in the Kamoi Ski slopes.
I remember him being a 4th grader. My first impression of him was that his body was practically large for a 4th grader with a high waist position, a flexible knee, and a kid who skies freely. Afterwards, I came across him a number of times at the Salomon Team camp, and the joint training with the Sapporo and Otaru junior team camp.
An episode from his 6th grade year.
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| Descente Training Camp was held with Tetsuya Okabe, a Japanese World Cup Skier at the time, as the coach. He told me that within the participants, there was one boy who seemed quite promising and I knew with inspiration that he was talking about Akira. I was advised from Tetsuya to tell the boy’s parents to “make him come by himself using the train when participating in the camps”. From the next camp, he took the advise into action and came by train. I was going to take him home on his way back by dropping him off at Sapporo Station, but Akira told me he was ok here so I saw him off in front of the station.
Incident after this parting; He made a mistake by taking the train in the wrong direction. He realized he had made the mistake but it was already too late… he explained the situation to the train master and when he came back to Hakodate Station, the destination, the time was 3a.m. which was 4 hours later than his planned arrival. His parents must have been worried sick about him…
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| Concerning competing in ski races, he seemed to have become conscious with competing world wide when he was in junior high school. With all the ski fans in Japan, I anticipate for his frequent placement on the victory stand. |
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