Shohhei Tochimoto, the 17-year-old Japanese talent who won two silver medals at the 2007 junior worlds in Tarvisio, Italy, and team bronze medalist from the worlds in Sapporo, captured his maiden victory Sept. 9 in the second of the two FIS Grand Prix ski-jumping events in Hakuba.   

HAKUBA, Japan — Shohhei Tochimoto, the 17-year-old Japanese talent who won two silver medals at the 2007 junior worlds in Tarvisio, Italy, and team bronze medalist from the worlds in Sapporo, captured his maiden victory Sept. 9 in the second of the two FIS Grand Prix ski-jumping events in Hakuba.    
    Recording the longest leaps in both rounds, Tochimoto beat Saturday’s winner, Andreas Kuettel of Switzerland, by 5.4 points. Noriaki Kasai, the 35-year-old veteran, finished third as he did on Saturday, while Michael Neumayer of Germany finished fourth for the second time in a row.
    With 359 points, Kuettel is now third in the overall FIS Grand Prix rankings, 101 points behind second-place Adam Malysz of Poland and 141 points behind the leader, Austria’s Thomas Morgenstern.
    There are two events left in the Grand Prix schedule: the series will resume on Oct. 3, the Day of German Reunification, in Oberhof, Germany, and conclude on Oct. 6 in Klingenthal.
    On Sept. 8, Kuettel claimed his first podium finish this summer. Kuettel posted the longest jumps in both rounds and collected 14.6 points more than Tochimoto