Masahiko Harada

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Masahiko "Happy" Harada (原田 雅彦, Harada Masahiko^?, born May 9, 1968 in Kamikawa, Hokkaido) is a Japanese ski jumper. He is best remembered for a meltdown at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer and his subsequent redemption at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

At the 1994 games, the Japanese team had a nearly insurmountable lead heading into the last jump of the large hill. Harada, the team's anchor, had jumped 122 meters in his previous attempt and needed only 105 meters in his final jump to clinch gold for Japan. His jump was just shy of 98 meters and dropped Japan to second, with the gold going to the German team.

Four years later Harada would again have his chance to deliver team gold, this time in his home country. His first jump of 79.5 meters knocked his team from first to fourth and brought back memories of Lillehammer. Then, on his second attempt he delivered an Olympic-record tying 137 meter jump. His teammate Kazuyoshi Funaki would then close out the event with a 125 meter jump, clinching the first Olympic ski jumping gold medal for Japan since the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo.

Along with the team gold, Harada also captured bronze in Nagano in the individual large hill after a 136 meter final jump that pushed up him from sixth to third.

Harada has competed in five Olympics. In addition to the Lillehammer and Nagano games, he competed in Albertville in 1992, Salt Lake City in 2002 and Turin in 2006.

He is a two-time FIS Nordic World Ski Championships winner (1993: individual normal hill, 1997: individual large hill), and also won three silvers (1997: Individual normal hill, 1997, 1999: Team large hill) and one bronze (1999: Individual normal hill) as well.

On July 12, 2006, Harada was appointed Ambassador to the 2007 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Sapporo, Japan by the organizing committee. The 2007 Championships ran February 22-March 4, 2007.

For reasons unbeknownst to true ski-jumping fans, Harada is commonly misremembered by casual Olympic viewers as Happy Hatsui.

[edit] References

• FIS-Ski: Masahiko Harada - statistics
• FIS Announcement on Ambassador Appointment
• 2007 Nordic World Skiing Championship announcement

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