Hideharu Miyahira

Japanese ski jumper Hideharu Miyahira achieved the greatest sporting successes of his career in 1999. He won three World Championship medals at Ramsau, Austria, taking silvers in the normal hill (behind legendary Japanese jumper Kazuyoshi Funaki) and with the Japanese team on the large hill, and also a large hill bronze (behind Martin Schmitt and Sven Hannawald. That year Miyahira also had his first World Cup podium finishes (third at Innsbruck and Bischofshofen) and then enjoyed his first World Cup victory. Miyahira finished the 1999 season in third place in the overall ranking of the Ski Flying World Cup, and was fifth in the overall World Cup.

Miyahira made his one and only Olympic appearance in 2002 at Salt Lake City, where he was a member of the fifth-placed team, and individually was 24th in the large hill. At the 2003 World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Miyahira just missed a medal on the normal hill, finishing fourth (0.5 points behind Noriaki Kasai), but won a silver medal on the large hill with the Japanese team, ending his all-time World Championships medal count at four, three silvers and one bronze. In a World Cup career that spanned from 1994-2006, Miyahira had one individual win (1999 large hill in Planica, Slovenia) and 10 individual and seven team podium finishes in 181 individual and 16 team starts.

At the 2003 World Cup in Willingen, Miyahira achieved perfect marks from all five judges (20 points maximum) for this second jump, a rare feat amongst ski jumpers. Known as a lightweight ski jumper, when the BMI rule in ski jumping was introduced in spring 2004 (which stated that jumpers including their sports equipment with a BMI of less than 20 must start with shorter skis), Miyahira lost touch with the world’s best. In the following World Cup season (2005), he often struggled to qualify to the second round of the 30 best jumpers. In 2006, he competed in one World Cup event, his last international competition, in his hometown of Sapporo on 5 March 2006.

After his competition days were over, Miyahira stayed involved in the sport, first as an assistant coach to the Japanese national team and then, in 2018, he succeeded Tomoharu Yokokawa as the head coach.