Yukio Kasaya

Yukio Kasaya was a Japanese ski jumper, born on 17 August 1943 in Yoichi, Hokkaido, who died in Sapporo on 23 April 2024 at the age of 80. At the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo he became the first Japanese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal and the second Japanese, after Chiharu Igaya, to win any medal at the Winter Games. Before that he placed second at the 1970 World Championships and won the first three jumping events of the 1971 to 72 Four Hills Tournament. He also took part in the 1964, 1968 and 1976 Olympics and carried the Japanese flag at the opening ceremony in 1976 and again in 1998. He took up ski jumping at the Taketsuru facility in Yoichi, built by the founder of Nikka Whisky Distilling, which was renamed after him in 1972, and he worked for the Nikka distillery, eventually as a section head.