SAPPORO (Kyodo) Veteran ski jumper Takanobu Okabe nailed the day's longest jump of 97 meters on his first attempt en route to winning his third straight domestic event of the season at the Snow Brand Cup on Sunday.
The 38-year-old Okabe, individual gold medalist at the 1995 Nordic world championships and a member of Japan's 1998 Nagano Olympic gold medal-winning team, added a solid 95-meter effort in the second round of jumps and collected 254.0 points for a comfortable win on the K-90 Miyanomori hill in Hokkaido.
Yukio Sakano finished a distant second after jumps of 92 and 89 meters earned 228.5 while Shota Tanaka followed in third place.