Zhangjiakou, China, February 15, 2022: Despite temperatures of -20 C, Japanese winter sports veteran Akito Watabe was determined not to be frozen out of the medals in the Nordic Combined on Tuesday, February 15.
It was Watabe’s third Olympic medal, following silver medals in the Normal Hill/10km Individual race at Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018.
"In terms of this season's performance, that I got a medal is a miracle in itself. It's not quite the medal I wanted but, in terms of my performance and looking at the season as a whole, I think I did really well," he said.
"It's really big for me because this season has been so hard - no podium in the World Cup so far.”
Watabe said he was happy with his jumping - “the best this season,” he said - but had to dig deep in the cross-country race requiring four laps of the 2.5km course.
“I was just empty. I was going too fast and, in these cold conditions, I was really freezing until the third round. It was hard and I tried to push myself, but it was empty. It was one of the hardest races in my career.”
The Nordic Combined specialist said he had never experienced such cold conditions before.
"It was really hard. I lost a lot of energy at the end. I had no power for the fight for the gold.”
Norway finished 1-2 through Joergen Graabak (27 minutes, 13.30 seconds) and Jens Luraas Oftebro (27:13.70), just 0.4 seconds behind. Watabe took bronze in 27:13.9, 0.6 seconds off the pace.
Photo: FIS Nordic Combined