Milano Cortina 2026: Japan’s Dual Mogul Silver Medalist Ikuma Horishima Inspired by Former Champion Shinji Osada When Competing in Milan

By Azusa Nakazono / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

17:07 JST, February 16, 2026

“If you keep dreaming, the dream will be realized. If you put effort in without giving up, it will pay off.”

Freestyle skier Ikuma Horishima has held these words dear since childhood and kept them in mind when the 28-year-old delivered Japan’s first Olympic silver medal in the men’s mogul.

In the dual moguls, two skiers race side-by-side, competing to advance to the next stage through their execution of turns and aerial maneuvers as well as their time. This was the first time the dual moguls were held in the Olympics.

Horishima’s opponent in the final was Canadian rival Mikael Kingsbury, 33, who has announced that he will retire from the Winter Olympics this year.

“Let’s enjoy the competition,” Horishima told himself before the start of the race. He boldly challenged the bumps, but lost his balance and was unable to perform the second aerial maneuver.

“I’m so disappointed that I could not race through until the end,” he said. “I think I saw Kingsbury’s determination.”

Horishima’s parents started to take him to ski resorts when he was about a year old. In 2009, during a visit to a water jump facility in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture, he met with Shinji Osada, who in that year won an international freestyle skiing big air event. Despite suffering from Tetralogy of Fallot, an incurable heart disease, 41-year-old Osada was a key figure in Japan’s freestyle skiing community.

When he was sixth grader of elementary school, Horishima would practice freestyle skiing alongside adults, focusing on each type of maneuver to perform them to the best of his ability. Around that time, he used to say, “I want to become an Olympic champion in mogul. I want to be a world champion like Mr. Osada.”

According to Osada, he told Horishima that based on his experiences, Horishima’s dream would be realized if he never gives up and that his efforts would pay off. Horishima wrote about the encounter with Osada and his words for an elementary school graduation album.

Horishima won the men’s moguls and came second in the dual moguls in the World Championships in March last year, but he suffered a serious injury during the competition, tearing the ligament on his left knee. Since then, he underwent a tough rehabilitation regime and continued to train in order to be ready for the Milano Cortina Games. As a result, he topped the overall World Cup ranking for this season before participating the Winter Games.

Osada, who watched Horishima’s silver medal race in Japan on Sunday, said: “He showed us his own run which was truly remarkable. His determination to keep skiing until the very end inspired so many people.”

Horishima is already determined to keep up his efforts. “My goal is to win the gold four years from now,” he said. “I want to keep training through these four years and return to this stage [of the Olympics.]”