Melo Imai, a Japanese Olympic snowboarder who retired from the sport in 2006, has announced that she is ready to make a return to the sport. After leaving the sport over a decade ago, Imai took a couple jobs to support herself: she became a hostess at a bar and an actress in soft-core porn films. According to the New York Post, Imai said, “After the Olympics, I was making as much as a company president, and sometimes I’d go party at a host club and drop $9,000 in a single night.”
Although she failed to medal in the halfpipe event, the then 18-year-old athlete became a national hero in Japan. She is part of a family of snowboarders, including her father Takashi Narita, a coach, and her brother Dome Narita, who also competes. Over a decade after leaving the board, Imai, now 30, shocked many by winning a national competition at the All Japan Snowboarding Championships with only four days of training under her belt. Imai earned the gold with an astonishing score of 90.75. Momoa Mori, the silver medalist, had a score of 76.75. Rumor has it, Imai is looking at snagging a spot with Japan in the 2022 Winter Olympics, which will take place in Beijing, China. From the poor performance of Japan's snowboarding this year (the best result they've had is ninth place), it appears that they could use her.
“I want to return to the world of snowboarding, so I’m taking care not to get involved with things that are overly pornographic,” Imai said to Japanese media.
