Kazuyoshi Funaki Explained

Kazuyoshi Funaki
船木 和喜
Fullname:船木 和喜
Birth Date:27 April 1975
Birth Place:Yoichi, Hokkaido, Japan
Height:1.75 m
Club:Fit Ski
Personalbest:206.5 m (677 ft)
Planica, 19 March 1999
Seasons:1993
19952005
20092012
Wins:15
Teamwins:2
Totalpodiums:38
Teampodiums:7
Events In Yellow:7
Individual Starts:238
Team Starts:17
Fhtitles:1 (1998)
Nttitles:1 (1997)
Updated:10 February 2016

(born 27 April 1975) is a Japanese former ski jumper. He ranked among the most successful sportsmen of its discipline, particularly in the 1990s. Funaki is known for his special variant of the V-style, in which the body lies flatter between the skis than usual.

Career

Funaki began ski jumping at the age of eleven. His birthplace Yoichi is also the home of Yukio Kasaya, who was a Japanese national hero with his Normal Hill victory in the 1972 Winter Olympics at Sapporo. Kasaya was also Funaki's role model.

Funaki had his first World Cup appearance on December 20, 1992 in Sapporo. His first World Cup victory was achieved on December 10, 1994 in the normal hill at Planica, Slovenia. Several weeks later, he was leading the Four Hills Tournament in total tour points after the third event. In the second part of the last event at Bischofshofen, he had the longest jump of 131.5 meters, but fell during the landing - and the overall tour victory went to Austrian Andreas Goldberger, and Funaki finished second.

Altogether Funaki won 15 World Cup career victories, his last on February 5, 2005 at Sapporo. He achieved his best results in the 1997/98 season with a second rank in the World Cup rankings. In that season he also won the Four Hills Tournament.

In 1997, Funaki won the ski jumping event at the Holmenkollen ski festival. He also won the FIS Ski-Flying World Championships 1998 in Oberstdorf.

The high point of his career was in the 1998 Winter Olympic Games at Nagano. In front of his local crowd, Funaki won the individual gold medal on the individual large Hill, which was the first Olympic ski jumping gold for Japan since 1972, the team large hill gold medal, and the individual normal hill silver medal behind the Finn Jani Soininen. During those games, he became only the second person to ever achieve perfect marks from all five judges (20 points is the highest attainable mark), following Toni Innauer who had achieved this masterpiece already in 1976 and preceding Sven Hannawald (2003), Hideharu Miyahira (2003) and Wolfgang Loitzl (2009). In honor of these achievements, he represented Asia in carrying the Olympic Flag during the opening ceremonies of the next Winter Olympics, in Salt Lake City.

At the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, he became the world champion of the individual normal hill in 1999 at Ramsau, Austria. And together with the Japanese team, he placed 2nd in the Team large hill in 1997, 1999 and 2003.

For his ski jumping successes, Funaki received the Holmenkollen medal in 1999.

While he does not compete in World Cup or Continental Cup events, Funaki still takes part in local Japanese competitions. In March 2019 he finished 10th and 42nd in FIS Race events in Sapporo.

World Cup

Standings

 Season Overall
scope=row align=centerN/A N/A
scope=row align=center4 align=center bgcolor=silver7 N/A N/A
scope=row align=center33 28 19 N/A 39
scope=row align=centeralign=center bgcolor=#A5716410 align=center bgcolor=#A57164align=center bgcolor=#D4AF374
scope=row align=centeralign=center bgcolor=silveralign=center bgcolor=#D4AF37align=center bgcolor=silver8 4
scope=row align=center4 5 4 align=center bgcolor=silveralign=center bgcolor=#A57164
scope=row align=center14 13 9 14 13
scope=row align=center30 46 40 N/A
scope=row align=center11 25 N/A 9 N/A
scope=row align=center30 33 N/A 34 N/A
scope=row align=center40 44 N/A 39 N/A
scope=row align=center30 52 N/A 57 N/A
scope=row align=center63 N/A
scope=row align=centerN/A
scope=row align=center58 N/A N/A
scope=row align=centerN/A N/A

Wins

No.SeasonDateLocationHillSize
scope=row style="text-align:center;"1 align=center rowspan=210 December 1994   Srednja Bloudkova K90 NH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"2 4 January 1995   Bergiselschanze K110 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"3 align=center rowspan=414 December 1996   Čerťák K120 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"4 4 January 1997   Bergiselschanze K110 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"5 12 March 1997   Puijo K95 (night) NH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"6 14 March 1997   Holmenkollbakken K112 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"7 align=center rowspan=529 December 1997   Schattenbergschanze K115 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"8 1 January 1998   Große Olympiaschanze K115 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"9 4 January 1998   Bergiselschanze K110 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"10 25 January 1998   Heini-Klopfer-Skiflugschanze K185 FH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"11 21 March 1998   Bloudkova velikanka K120 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"12 align=center rowspan=310 January 1999   Gross-Titlis-Schanze K120 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"13 24 January 1999   Ōkurayama K120 LH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"14 6 March 1999   Salpausselkä K90 (night) NH
scope=row style="text-align:center;"15 5 February 2005   Ōkurayama HS134 (night) LH

See also