Noriaki Kasai

Okay, I have to tip my hat here, because Noriaki Kasai is one of those athletes who genuinely makes me rethink what a human body is allowed to do. Ski jumping always struck me as a young person's gamble, all nerve and fast-twitch fearlessness, yet this guy from Shimokawa in Hokkaido kept hurling himself off the hill into his forties and beyond, racking up Olympic appearances like he was collecting stamps. Born in 1972, all 176 centimeters of him still leaning into the wind decades after most peers retired, he's less a competitor and more a force of stubborn gravity. I love that there's nothing flashy about it. The whole legend is just the refusal to stop flying, and honestly, lasting that long in the air is its own kind of quiet miracle.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Noriaki Kasai is a Japanese ski jumper and alpine skier born on June 6, 1972, in Shimokawa, Hokkaido. Widely regarded as one of the longest-serving competitors in ski jumping history, he has represented Japan across an extraordinary number of Olympic Games well into his forties. He attended Tokai University Sapporo High School. He has competed at eight Winter Olympics, a record, won individual silver at the 2014 Sochi Games, and competed in the World Cup across 35 seasons through 2025–26. He has an Instagram account.

Name (English)

Noriaki Kasai

Name (Japanese)

葛西紀明

Reading

かさい のりあき

Born

June 6, 1972 (age 54)

Origin

Shimokawa, Hokkaido, Japan

Height

176 cm

Occupation

Ski Jumper / Alpine Skier

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Gemini / Rat

High school

Tokai University Sapporo High School

• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/nori66nori66/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%91%9B%E8%A5%BF%E7%B4%80%E6%98%8E
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q343346

Tags

• From Hokkaido
• Ski Jumper
• Alpine Skier

Last updated

November 2, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.