Takanashi left wondering what went wrong

How about media pressure, for starters. I bet the JOC is already trying to figure out how to explain the lower than predicted medal count.

Fortunately Sara will have mor chances in the future.

wow. I think that many people thought she was pretty much a lock on a gold medal. But that's the way of the Olympics. You can have an outstanding run before the Olympics with everyone looking at you to take the gold. Then on game day, the stars, or whoever controls these things, start laughing and no medal for you. It does keep things interesting.

Japanese media at best....there was never a let up, she was pressured beyond and more. I wonder when will Japan media starts to shut up. All hype as in she is God of the Hills. Let her enjoy the way she has been doing. She was extremely well before the nauseating media coverage started portraying her to be the best and absolute.

"What went wrong"? It's the bloody Olympics - the top athletes the world has to offer. Was she - or perhaps just the nation thanks to the media - naive enough to think a gold medal was guaranteed?

What went wrong? You can start with the issue of the nation's hopes being placed on a very young set of shoulders.

it's easy to blame the media, but every athlete who is favored to win also gets the same pressure from their country. mao had the same pressure years ago but still managed to get a medal in figure skating.

Pretty good insight on her own performance for a 17 yr. old if you ask me ! Hang in there, Sara-san ! The future is yours !

one thing that many young J athletes arnt taught is mental toughness. the mental side of competition should be just as important in training as the practical.

rickyvee: "mao had the same pressure years ago but still managed to get a medal in figure skating."

But not the gold the media had more or less already counted on Mao's behalf. In fact, I distinctly recall EVERYONE I met in Japan talking about how badly they wanted to watch the figure skating finals or how they couldn't wait for Mao to win, and the next day not a soul talked about the finals at all. Same in this situation; many people I know were very much looking forward to watching the ski jump, and yesterday very few wanted to talk about it. One person did though; she admitted that she had recorded the event on her blue-ray player, but when she saw the result on the news before she had had a chance to see the recording, she refused to watch it.

The media in many nations puts pressure on their athletes, for sure, but not like here. They choose a poster child here and play the person's life history, have them carry the flag, etc., then there's almost a media shut down when the person doesn't get gold. Time and time again it happens, be it Takanashi, Fukuhara, Asada, etc.