Akira Sasaki
Akira Sasaki 
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| nation |
 Japan
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| birthday | 26th September 1981 (age 38) | ||||||||
| place of birth | Ōno , Japan | ||||||||
| size | 181 cm | ||||||||
| Weight | 81 kg | ||||||||
| Career | |||||||||
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| discipline | Slalom, giant slalom | ||||||||
| status | resigned | ||||||||
| End of career | March 9, 2014 | ||||||||
| Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup | |||||||||
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Akira Sasaki ( Japanese 佐 々 木 明 , Sasaki Akira ; born September 26, 1981 in Ōno (today: Hokuto ), Hokkaidō ) is a former Japanese ski racer . He specialized in the slalom discipline.
biography
As a 15-year-old Sasaki took part in FIS races from November 1996 , from February 1997 also in the continental championship Far East Cup. He made his debut in the World Cup on February 17, 2001 in the Shigakogen slalom , in which he could not qualify for the second round. He achieved a remarkable performance on January 19, 2003 in the Lauberhorn Slalom in Wengen , where he surprisingly finished second with the start number 65 only four hundredths of a second behind the Italian Giorgio Rocca and thus won his first World Cup points.
A fourth place in Kranjska Gora Sasaki's best result in the 2003/04 World Cup season was a fifth place in Sestriere in the 2004/05 season . He achieved his best giant slalom result in 2005 with 24th place in Sölden . Towards the end of the 2005/06 season he took second place twice in World Cup slaloms , in Schladming and Shigakogen. In the following years he only managed to get into the points in a few cases. He contested his last World Cup race on March 9, 2014 in Kranjska Gora (22nd place in the slalom).
Sasaki took part in four Olympic Games and seven world championships . His best result at a major event was 18th place in the slalom at the 2010 Winter Olympics . He was three times the Japanese slalom champion.
successes
Olympic games
- Salt Lake City 2002 : 34th slalom
- Vancouver 2010 : 18th slalom
World championships
- St. Anton 2001 : 19th slalom
- St. Moritz 2003 : 38th Super-G
- Åre 2007 : 28th giant slalom, 36th super combined, 54th super G
- Schladming 2013 : 19th slalom
World cup
- 21 placements among the top ten, including 3 podium places
Continental Cups
- 1 podium in the European Cup
- 2 podium places in the Nor-Am Cup
- 13 podiums in the Far East Cup, including 7 wins
Junior World Championships
- Pra Loup 1999 : 24th slalom, 27th giant slalom, 46th Super-G
- Québec 2000 : 17th slalom, 34th giant slalom, 44th Super-G, 58th downhill
- Verbier 2001 : 6th slalom, 32nd giant slalom
More Achievements
- 3 Japanese championship titles (Slalom 2007, 2012, 2013)
- 18 victories in FIS races
Web links
- Akira Sasaki in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
- Akira Sasaki in the database of Ski-DB (English)
- Akira Sasaki in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sasaki, Akira |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 佐 々 木 明 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese ski racer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 26, 1981 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ōno , Hokkaidō , Japan |