Athlete of the Week: Akito Watabe (JPN)

With Jarl Magnus Riiber dominating the World Cup and only Vinzenz Geiger being able to beat the Norwegian super star twice so far, not many athletes could aspire to stand on the very top of the podium this winter. If someone had to make an educated guess of who was the most likely athlete to join this club, Jørgen Graabak with his eight second and three third places would probably be the very first name to come to mind.

With his worst season in a long time, Akito Watabe was a long way down that particular list. Struggling full-scale with his ski jumping AND cross-country skiing at the beginning of the season, the Japanese veteran and World Cup overall winner 2017/18 slowly brought his ski jumping back under control as the winter progressed. Still, what he lacked was the speed and a lot of confidence on the cross-country track where he could even be spotted letting other athletes pass to try (and often fail) hanging on to them. A broken pole and loss of the podium position in Lahti’s Team Sprint race did nothing to further Watabe’s confidence as last weekend started.

Then, the Individual Gundersen event happened, which will probably be remembered as one of the big fairy tale stories of this winter. Like Phoenix rising from the ashes, Watabe went to win the jumping round and, much to the surprise of many, also prevailed in the following cross-country race to become the third person this winter to win a Nordic Combined World Cup.

In an, admittedly, windy jumping round, the 31-year-old used all his routine and benefited from his smooth style of flying to take the jumping win. But even with the pole position captured, Watabe did not really believe that he would be able to make use of his good fortune. “There will be no tactic for the race”, he said after his jump. “I am lacking confidence on the track, so I will just go out there and see what happens”.

Which he proceeded to do. Cooperating well with Norwegian youngster Jens Lurås Oftebro, Watabe put in the hard work and was surprised when the fast athletes behind the leading duo did not close the gap. Against all claims not to have a tactic, he did pick the perfect moment to “follow his own pace”, take advantage of the really fast material his waxing staff provided and ski away from a tiring Oftebro on the last lap. His move gained him exactly as much ground as was needed to reach the finish line before Jørgen Graabak.

“This whole season was so hard for me. It’s difficult to describe my feelings now but I feel different than before this competition. This was one of the biggest breakthroughs of my life for me. I went from a really hard and dark place to a light place. It’s such a special day for me”, a visibly moved Watabe said after the race. With this victory, his 18th, he is now just one victory shy of the most successful Japanese Nordic Combined athlete ever, Kenji Ogiwara.

Judging by the number of international competitors congratulating Watabe after his surprise win, not many will disagree when we name him our “Athlete of the Week”.