Kentaro Minagawa ( 皆川 賢 太郎 Minagawa Kentaro , born May 17, 1977 ) is a former Japanese slalom skier . Member of four Olympics .
 Kentaro Minagawa | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizenship |  Japan | ||||||||
| Date of Birth | May 17, 1977 (42 years old) | ||||||||
| Place of Birth | Yuzawa , Japan | ||||||||
| Growth | 173 cm | ||||||||
| Weight | 88 kg | ||||||||
| Career | |||||||||
| Club | Takemura sogo setsubi | ||||||||
| Status | completed his career | ||||||||
| End of career | 2014 | ||||||||
| results | |||||||||
| Olympic Games | 4 ( 2006 ) | ||||||||
| World Championship | 10 ( 2001 ) | ||||||||
| world Cup | |||||||||
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Career
At the international level, in competitions under the auspices of the FIS, Kentaro Minagawa made his debut in 1994 when he took part in the New Zealand Open Championship, where he made it to the top ten in slalom competitions.
In 1995, he took part in the World Youth Championship, which was held in Norway and took 12th place in the slalom. The best result at the youth championships was shown a year later in Switzerland, when he closed the top five, losing only a second to the Austrian Benjamin Reich .
He made his world Cup debut on October 20, 1997 in French Tignes , where he started in giant slalom, but did not make his way to a decisive attempt. In February 1998, he took part in the home Olympic Games . Minagawa started in a giant and special slalom, but both times could not complete the distance, demonstrating too aggressive and risky technique.
The next few years he played in the World Cup irregularly and for a long time could not score the first cup points. Only in January 2000, the Japanese was able to break into the spectacle zone, while immediately took sixth place at a very prestigious stage in the Austrian Kitbühel . In 2001, also in Austria, he showed the best career result at the world championships , closing the top ten in slalom.
At the 2002 Olympics, he performed only in slalom and was disqualified by the results of the first attempt. Significantly more successful Minagawa performed at the Games in Turin . According to the results of the first attempt of slalom, he took third place, second only to Reich and Finn Palander . In the second attempt, Minagawa was not so fast and shared the fourth place with the Swede Muhrer by the sum of the two runs. At the same time, they were only 0.03 s behind bronze medalist Rainer Schönfelder . Japanese skiers have not achieved such a high result since 1956 , when Tiharu Igaya became the silver medalist of the Olympics.
At the end of 2006, the Japanese received a severe knee injury, but was able to recover and return to the national team. At the fourth Olympics in his career, Minagawa retired in his first slalom attempt.
At the end of his career, the Japanese played irregularly in the World Cup, but successfully performed at the regional Far Eastern Cup and in 20013 won the slalom score of this tournament.
He completed his career in 2014 .
Minagawa's wife is Aiko Uemura , a well-known Japanese freestyle artist , world champion in Mogul .
Performances at the Olympics
| Games | Slalom | Giant slalom |
|---|---|---|
| Nagano 1998 | DNF | DNF |
| Salt Lake City 2002 | DSQ | - |
| Turin 2006 | four | - |
| Vancouver 2010 | DNF | - |
Links
- Kentaro Minagawa - statistics on the FIS website
- Kentaro Minagawa - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com