Itō is a student and starts for the ski team of the Shimokawa Commercial High School ( 下 川 商業 高校 , Shimokawa shōgyō kōkō ). He made his debut in an international competition in March 2003 at an FIS competition in Sapporo . He started at the Junior World Championships in 2004 in Stryn and 2005 in Rovaniemi . He also made his debut in the Continental Cup (COC) in December of the same year in Rovaniemi . In January 2006 he took third place at the COC jumping on the Miyanomori hill in Sapporo and then got his first appearance in a first-class competition two weeks later, at the world cup competition on the Ōkurayama hill . After he finished sixth at the 2006 Junior World Championships in Kranj , Slovenia , he was appointed to the Japanese squad for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin . There he remained a substitute and was not used in the competition. He celebrated his first victory at the 2006 COC summer competitions in Lillehammer . At the Summer Grand Prix competitions in Hakuba , which took place a little later , he was able to achieve the points in a first-class competition for the first time. In the 2006/07 season he took part in the Four Hills Tournament after he had achieved other good placements in the Continental Cup . At their opening competition in Oberstdorf , he was the only Japanese who could reach the second round. The 26th place is his best World Cup result to this day. At the Nordic World Ski Championships 2007 , which took place in March , he reached a 37th place on the normal hill. A little later he won silver with the Japanese team in the team competition of the Junior World Championships 2007 in Planica . After that, except for the Junior World Championships in Zakopane in 2008 , it started almost exclusively in the Continental Cup, only in the World Cup and Grand Prix competitions in Japan. It was not until the Four Hills Tournament 2011/12 that he was used again outside of Japan in the World Cup and was able to qualify for the jumping in Innsbruck , where he was eliminated in the first round.