Like his future club mate Kazuhiro Koshi , Hiroatsu Takahashi studied sports science at Sendai University and lives in Nagano Prefecture . He began playing skeleton in 2002 and has been a member of the Japanese national team since 2006, as well as the White Thunder Skeleton Club of the IT company Systex, which was founded in 2007. The Japanese made his international debut in the America's Cup in 2004 and finished 29th in his first race in Calgary . Other races followed only sporadically in this racing series. He took part in the Winter Universiade 2005 in Innsbruck and was 18th there. In the same month he also started for the first time at a Junior World Championship , where he came in 22nd in Winterberg . A year later he was 16 in Igls . Since 2008 Takahashi has been regularly on international assignments. In Park City in January of that year he achieved a top ten result for the first time with a fifth place in the America's Cup. In the overall standings of the season he came in sixth place with John Fairbairn . The Japanese competed in the America's Cup in the first half of the 2008/09 season and finished in the top ten in five out of six races. In the overall standings, he finished eighth. In the further course of the season Takahashi started in the Skeleton European Cup . In his first race in St. Moritz , he achieved his first international podium finish with second place behind John Daly . Also in the 2009/10 season he competed in the European Cup and was used in all eight races. His best result was a fourth place in St. Moritz, only once, in 12th place, missed the top ten in Altenberg . In the overall standings, Takahashi was sixth.
For the 2010/11 season , Takahashi was able to qualify for the Skeleton World Cup and made his first appearance in Igls at the start of the season, where he finished 21st. He had previously won the Japanese championship for the first time. In the further course of the season his best result was rank 15 in Winterberg and at the world championship he was 19. In the following season he reached 12th place in Lake Placid and otherwise ranks between 16 and 19, which he was 16th in the overall World Cup. In the 2012/13 season he was able to increase both his best placement in an individual race and his result in the overall standings by one place. His most successful season to date followed in 2013/14 with his first top ten places in the World Cup: 8th place in Winterberg, 9th in Park City and 10th place twice in the first and last races of the season in Calgary and Königssee . He also took tenth place in the overall World Cup. At the subsequent Olympic Games in Sochi , he finished 12th. In 2014/15 he achieved two single-digit results in the World Cup and was 14th at the World Championships in Winterberg. At the end of 2015, Takahashi was Japanese champion for the fourth time.
Japan
