Chiharu Igaya

Chiharu Igaya
nation	Japan
birthday	20th May 1931 (age 89)
place of birth	Kunashir , Japan
Career
discipline	Giant slalom , slalom , combination
status	resigned
End of career	1960
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 1 × 0 × World championships 0 × 1 × 1 ×
winter Olympics silver Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 slalom  Alpine World Ski Championships silver Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 slalom bronze Bad Gastein 1958 slalom

Chiharu Igaya ( Japanese 猪 谷 千 春 , Igaya Chiharu ; born May 20, 1931 in Kunaschir , Hokkaidō , Japan (today: Sakhalin Oblast , Far East , Russia )) is a former Japanese ski racer . In the 1950s, he was the first skier from Asia to reach the top of the world. In 1982 Igaya became a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and was its vice-president from 2005 to 2012. He has been an honorary member of the IOC since 2012.

biography

Igaya only began to focus on ski racing while studying in the USA . At Dartmouth College he developed into an international top runner in training under former ski world champion Walter Prager . In 1952 he took part in the Olympic Winter Games in Oslo for the first time and was eleventh in slalom. His breakthrough began two years later when he won the US championship in slalom and alpine combined. On January 2, 1956, he won the slalom in Adelboden . At the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo , he surprisingly won the silver medal behind Toni Sailer in the slalom competition .

Also in 1958 he drew attention to himself in the Adelboden slalom (this time 4th place on January 5th) and then Igaya was able to confirm his Olympic success at the 1958 World Ski Championships in Bad Gastein , Austria . In the slalom he won the bronze medal, he was also sixth in the giant slalom and (with 15th place in the downhill on February 9th) fourth in the combination. At the "International Etna Race" on 20./21. March 1958 he won the slalom and took second place in the giant slalom. In 1960 he won his last championship title in the USA and was again twelfth in slalom at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley . Then he ended his active sports career.

In the following years Igaya built a successful career as a businessman. In May 1982 he was elected to the International Olympic Committee to succeed Tsuneyoshi Takeda . There he was a member of the Executive Committee from 1987 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 2000. In 2005, the members of the IOC elected him one of the organization’s vice presidents. Igaya has two children with his wife Akiko.

Web links

Commons : Chiharu Igaya  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Chiharu Igaya in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
• Chiharu Igaya in the database of Ski-DB (English)
• Chiharu Igaya in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Chiharu Igaya on the IOC website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Nippon Olympians Kyōkai: Interview with Igaya Chiharu
2. ↑ The Japanese Igaya makes you sit up and take notice . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 3, 1956, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
3. ↑ Adelboden was an apprenticeship . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 8, 1958, p. 10 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
4. ^ "Toni Sailer: Downhill winner before 50,000", "Sport Zürich", No. 17 of February 10, 1958, page 4.
5. ↑ Toni Spiss turned the tables . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 22, 1958, p. 10 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
6. ↑ Biographical background on 2006 Dartmouth honorary degree recipientsCHIHARU IGAYADartmouth Class of 1957 (Doctor of Humane Letters) ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.