Takanobu Okabe, who missed out on a place in Japan's ski jumping team for next month's Salt Lake City Olympics, soared to victory in the HBC Cup large hill competition with a pair of impressive jumps on Monday.
Okabe took the lead after a 131-meter effort in the first round and went on to win his second HBC Cup with the day's longest leap of 139.5 meters at the K-120 Okurayama hill for a total of 284.4 points.
"The second jump was close to the record Mr. (Masahiko) Harada set yesterday.
I wish I could have flown over that mark, but it's good that I'm getting better finally," said Okabe, a member of the Japanese quartet who won the gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Games. Yasunori Suzuki finished runnerup with 254.8 points after traveling 127 and 126.5 meters.
Akira Higashi took third on 250.8 despite taking a spill on the landing of a 132.5-meter jump on his first attempt.