Ski Sensation
One young Member has found competition success on Japan’s snowy slopes.
Despite cruising to victory at the Southern Kanto Plain alpine ski competition in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture last February, Kikka Giudici missed the awards presentation.
“One time, before a race, I inspected the wrong course,” says 12-year-old Club Member Giudici, highlighting the problems of not being able to speak Japanese. “When I started in Italy, it was with a team. They bring you and they manage your stuff. Here, you have to manage everything yourself.”
Mariachiara Giudici, who has gone by Kikka since childhood, began competing in slalom and giant slalom ski events at the age of 9, when she won her first race. Two years ago, she finished the season in second place at St Moritz in Switzerland. Then she moved to Tokyo.
“She and her brother are the only foreign alpine ski racers [in Japan], basically,” says her mother, Michaela Küster. “If you can’t Google in katakana or hiragana, you can’t find anything. It took us a year to feel it out and know what’s going on.”
This past winter, Giudici trained every weekend with Doug Ito, a Canadian-Japanese ski coach in Nagano. Ito says Giudici’s strong athletic build, agility and aggressiveness on the slopes make her an elite skier for her age.
And at 1.67 meters, she is almost a head taller than her Japanese cohorts. “One of the people on the Tokyo team, her thigh was as big as my calf,” says Giudici during an interview at the Club.
By triumphing in her age group in Tokyo, Giudici qualified to race against Japan’s top skiers at March’s Junior Olympics at Honoki Daira ski resort in Gifu Prefecture. A week before the competition, she traveled with her Tokyo teammates to the area. Besides the language, the 5 a.m. starts also proved a challenge.
“I have never skied that early,” she says. “In Italy, we were on the slopes maybe by 9 a.m. If you told the Italians the race starts at 7, maybe no one would come.”
On day one of the Junior Olympics, Giudici competed in the super giant slalom, or super-G, event for the first time in her life. In this intense alpine skiing discipline, top racers can reach speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour.
At the half-way point of her one run, Giudici was two-hundredths of a second behind the leader. Then she miscalculated the location of a gate. She was disqualified.
Stewing over her loss, she returned to action two days later and placed second in the slalom. “I was happy, a lot happier than two days before,” says Giudici. “But I am also competitive. I want to get first place.”
This summer, Giudici will train for a week in Italy, before heading to New Zealand for a month at a ski school. Such trips, along with new sets of skis every year, make the sport far from cheap, according to her parents.
“What is heavier on the family is that you have to give up your entire social life for the winter,” says Küster. “Still, it is good for kids to do if they like it. It’s a nice way to spend a little bit of time outside and get fresh air.”
Next year, Giudici hopes to represent Japan at the famed Trofeo Topolino competition back home in Italy. She’s also keen to take on the super-G again. “I like that feeling of speed,” says Giudici. “It’s a feeling only skiing gives you.”
Words: Nick Narigon
Photo: Kayo Yamawaki
