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Honda Takeshi |
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| Date of Birth | March 23, 1981 |
| Place of Birth | Koriyama, Fukushima |
Honda Takeshi is a Japanese top figure skater. Now he have gone to America to train.
He put on skates for the first time at the age of eight, but it was a not as a figure skater but as a speed skater. He converted to figure skating when he was nine years old, and just six years later he became Japan's national champion and finished second in the World Junior Championships.
The Nagano Winter Game was held in 1998. He took part in the Olympic at age 16 and placed 15th. Shortly thereafter, he went to Simsbury, Connecticut to train with Galina Zmievskaia, a renowned Ukrainian coach.
His hard work there seemed to bear fruit. He did the quadruple toe loop at the NHK Trophy in Sapporo in December, 1998 and he finished second. Now he aims to finish in the top five at the World Championships in Helsinki in March, 1999.
He feels his training environment in the States is more conductive to increasing his level of skating and hopes of staying there until the next Olympics (2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City).
References: Japan Times January 14, 1999, and Sports Eye
Reported by: Hitomi Ooshita
Date of Report: January 1999