Goro Adachi

Born as the son of the later mayor of his home village on the island of Hokkaido Goro, Adachi attended the Otaru Junior High School together with Masaji Iguro. He was the first successful Japanese ski jumper in international competitions. In 1931 he won the juniors’ title at the All Japan Ski Championships and in 1935 he took the seniors’ national title. He competed twice in Olympic Winter Games; after an eighth place in Lake Placid in 1932, where he managed to beat Scandinavians and Americans, he had to settle for a 45th place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, after having placed seventh in the first round and a fall in the second. In the same year, he excelled with a third place at the 1936 Holmenkollen Games in Oslo.

After the cancellation of the 1940 Winter Games in Sapporo and the end of the Pacific War, Adachi returned to the Fukuoka prefecture. There he took over his parents-in-law’s Tempura cookshop working until two months before his death from respiratory failure at the age of 86.