Given that their job gives them more opportunity than virtually anyone else on Earth to un-ironically advise people to chill, it’s probably safe to say most snowboarders are pretty laid back dudes and dudettes. Although our knowledge of snowboarding is admittedly limited to the SSX games, we feel supremely confident labelling Kazuhiro Kokubo one the chillest snowboarders of all time based purely on how he acted immediately prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In a nutshell, Kokubo caused a minor controversy in his Native Japan when he turned up to board his team’s plane to the Vancouver Winter Games exuding previously unheard of levels of swag.
As you can probably tell from that image, Kokubo was wearing the same uniform as everyone else that day but had decided to rock it his own way, opting to unbutton his shirt, loosen his tie and accessorize the shit out of the whole ensemble with a ridiculously oversized pair of sunglasses.
Despite looking, as the kids would say, cool as fuck, Prudish Japanese viewers took exception to most every aspect of Kokubu’s outfit from his stylin’ dreadlocks to the sunglasses he’d inexplicably decided to wear indoors, at night. After a torrent of complaints from evidently, very sad people, Kokubo was called upon to apologise for his slovenly appearance, which he did the next day in a press conference when he arrived in Vancouver. By which we mean he dragged out each word of his apology for half a dozen seconds, metaphorically washing his balls with each syllable so that everyone in attendance knew he was being sarcastic before referring to the Olympic fucking games as “nothing special“, before murmuring “shut up” under his breath loud enough for every single microphone in front of him to pick it up.
Unsurprisingly, Japanese officials were enraged and Kokubo was subsequently banned from attending the opening ceremony and events in Japan to watch his snowboarding heats were cancelled. Officials later reviewed Kokubo’s punishment and decided that maybe they were a little too harsh and instead asked him to make a small donation to a charitable cause of his choice and to think about the weight and responsibility involved with representing your country on the world stage and how he should carry himself in future interviews to reflect the best qualities of his homeland. Actually no wait, they felt like just being a dick to Kokubo wasn’t enough and banned his coach and manager from attending the opening ceremony too (because fuck them, we guess). As if that wasn’t bad enough, Kokubo’s father was made to feel like such a shithead for raising such a failure of a son (you know, his son the world-class Olympic athlete) that he was forced to issue a sobbing, grovelling apology on his behalf to the entire country of Japan.
Kokubo, to his credit, later apologised more sincerely a day or so later and bowed deeply in a show of shame and regret. Unfortunately, Kokuburo failed to win a medal that year and its noted that he wasn’t able to really shred as well as he’d done so in previous competitions he’d attended that year, almost like he was distracted or had been getting shit for 4 days non stop for dressing in a way that made him feel comfortable or something.
Weird huh?
