Akito Watabe

Akito Watabe (渡部 暁斗) is a Japanese nordic combined skier who has been competing since 2005. He won a gold medal in the 4 × 5 km team event at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 in Liberec.

Career
Competing in two Winter Olympics, Watabe earned his best finish of sixth in the 4 x 5 team event at Vancouver in 2010 and had his best individual finish of ninth in the 10 km individual large hill event at those same games.

His best World Cup finish was third at a 10 km individual large hill event in Finland in March 2010, until the 2011/2012 season when he started to win World Cup competitions.

During the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Akito Watabe took home the Silver Medal in the Nordic Combined Individual Gundersen NH / 10 km, Cross-Country event.

In the 2018 Olympics, Watabe won the silver medal in the normal hill/10 km Nordic combined competition.

In the 2022 Olympics, Akito Watabe won two bronze medals in the large hill/10 km and Team large hill Nordic combined competition.

Personal life
His wife, Yurie Watabe, is a Japanese freestyle skier, who specialises in halfpipe. Akito's younger brother, Yoshito also competes in Nordic Combined World Cup.