Hometown crowds were overjoyed by gold medals from speed skater Shimizu Hiroyasu, free-style skier Satoya Tae, and ski jumper Funaki Kazuyoshi.

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The long shots are Kazuyoshi Kaneko and Tadamori Oshima .

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Especially when the upstart is someone like Kazuyoshi Nagashima, a windsurfing, snowboarding 32-year-old former TV reporter who campaigned for mayor of the Kanagawa prefecture city of Zushi on a populist platform to, among other things, cut the entertainment budget for the mayor's office to zero.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia