He once competed in World Cup races, and in 2018 he returned to the snow as the head coach of the All Japan Alpine Team. Kenta Uraki moved to Innsbruck, Austria the following year, and currently operates Kesleski as the general agent in Japan. We will deliver the latest information and interesting topics such as European snow culture, gear and technology from a global perspective from overseas. This time I will talk about Keslesky, which I am involved with.
Reunion with KÄSTLE
In 2018, he became the head coach of the Alpine Ski National Team, and the following year, in 2019, his family moved from Hawaii, USA to Innsbruck, Austria in order to build a base for the All Japan Ski Federation and strengthen Japan's Alpine. However, in April 2022, after the Beijing Olympics, he was dismissed as head coach at the discretion of Alpine management. As a result, he became unemployed and living in Austria while raising a family. I was spending a mentally painful time thinking and worrying about what I was going to do with my life. In this situation, I couldn't get the Austrian ski brand KÄSTLE out of my mind.
Kessle is a ski brand that I have a lot of fondness for, having used it when I was an active athlete. Upon graduating from high school, he joined Nippon Nordica Co., Ltd., Kessle's general agent in Japan at the time, and competed in World Cups and world championships with Kessleski. However, in 1998, the Kessle brand was absorbed into Nordica and ceased to exist, and our partnership was also forcibly terminated.
More than 20 years later, I came across a nostalgic logo at a ski resort in Europe. That was Kessle's skiing. I was excited to see Kessle for the first time in a long time, and when I looked into it, I discovered that it had just started to make a comeback to the international market.
History of Kessle...From extinction to revival
First of all, what kind of brand is Kessle? Founded in 1924 in Hohenems, Austria, adjacent to the Swiss border. Since 1950, the team has won more than 130 medals at the Olympics and World Championships, in addition to the overall World Cup title, thanks to the efforts of Tony Sailer and Pirmin Zurbriggen. The skis that Chiharu Igaya, the only Japanese medalist in alpine skiing at the Olympics, used when she won a medal at the 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympics were also Kessle skis.
Athletes using Kessle continued to be active even after it was acquired by Italy's Benetton in 1991, but after the 1998 Nagano Olympics, the Kessle brand was absorbed into Nordica and disappeared, surprising everyone involved. .
More than 10 years later, a businessman from Austria's Vorarlberg region began working to revive the Kessle brand, and in 2015, the company's headquarters resumed operations. In addition to the ski manufacturing technology that has been proven in alpine skiing to date, we will make a fresh start by adding new technologies such as the brand icon Hollowtech (the oval shape at the tip of every ski and a patented vibration absorption function). It happened.
In 2018, Czech company Koncilsport acquired a majority stake in Kessle. As a result, Kessle expanded its product categories and made a full comeback towards the global market.
Expanding to Japan
After retiring from skiing, I have been involved in various jobs other than skiing. In the past, she started businesses in the real estate and bridal industries despite having no experience, and managed to make it through just her own ideas and feelings. Perhaps for that reason, the idea of expanding and importing and selling a ski brand in Japan had a huge advantage compared to the previous attempts at starting a business in a different field, so there was no reason to hesitate to take on the challenge.
A few weeks after he was fired as the head coach of the Alpine team, he prepared documents and photos to prove that he had been involved with Kessle in the past. “I was on my way to. It is also the place where the Kessle brand began, and where the company's headquarters is still located.
I started talking with the person in charge of international sales, and on my second visit I had a meeting with the CEO of the head office. Although I have lived in Austria for five years, I cannot speak German. Even though I could speak English, I often had trouble understanding complicated conversations. However, by talking about my enthusiasm for the brand and the future we envisioned together with Kessle, I was able to gain the trust of the CEO and other key members of the company's headquarters. And it has been decided that the Kessleski brand will be officially restarted in Japan, with me as the main focus.
A diverse lineup
Kessler, who has roots in racing, resumed competing in the Alpine World Cup in 2019. Then, in January 2023, Ilka Stuhec (Slovenia) became the first player to use Kessle in more than 20 years to win the Alpine World Cup. Athletes using Kessle continued to be successful in the following season, 2023-24, with Czech Republic's Esther Ledecka and Switzerland's Jasmine Fleury winning the Alpine World Cup. In addition, athletes using Kessle have become more prominent in World Cup events such as ski cross, moguls, aerials, and cross country.
With its revival, the product categories have been expanded to include freeride, all-mountain, touring skis, moguls, alpine boots, Nordic skis, and even mountain bikes. Among the most talked about items are freeride skis and alpine boots.
There are two types of freeride skis with a thicker center width: the ZX series (center width: 92mm, 100mm, 108mm, 115mm), which allows you to play freely from piste to powder, and the authentic freeride ski, which has outstanding stability even at high speeds. PARAGON series (center width: 93mm, 101mm, 107mm). Perhaps due to its design, it became popular among powder skiers in North America and can now be seen at ski resorts everywhere.
The ski boots that have been on sale since the 22nd-23rd season are Kessle Mint, which is also the brand color. It has an outstanding presence on the snow, and is attracting attention for its unique K-blend material, which is sticky and unaffected by temperature.
Expansion of ski production capabilities
The top racing models continue to be produced at the company's main factory in Hohenems, Austria, while the boots are made in a small town in the Treviso region of northern Italy, where ski boot makers from all over the world gather. In recent years, demand for Kesleski has continued to grow, and in 2022, the company expanded its factory in Nove Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic, modernizing and automating it. Furthermore, we have made large-scale investments in solar power generation systems, making it possible to obtain most of our energy from renewable sources.
In the photo above, the building at the far end is the old factory, and the building in front of it is the newly built huge factory. There are solar panels on the roof to generate electricity. The wood that is piled up in the bottom of the photo is piled up. Wood core is the most important core material in ski manufacturing. Kessle's wood core is exposed to natural air and rain for three to five years, making it supple and strong enough to be used as a core material for skis.
Management strategies tailored to the times
If you want to operate an agency business for foreign brands in Japan, you will normally have to develop a business strategy based in Japan. However, since I am in Austria, which is located at the center of the ski business, I thought I should take advantage of this advantage. Fortunately, the Internet is connected all over the world, and we now live in an era where everything you need to do, including the communication necessary for doing business, marketing to strengthen your brand, and sales activities to expand your products, can be done online. Furthermore, due to the coronavirus, online meetings have become popular, making it easier than ever to work with Japanese partners overseas.
For this reason, I am based in Austria and am focusing on gathering information on Austria, an advanced skiing country. Additionally, by building relationships with Kessle's headquarters, factories, and the people working there, he is now being asked for advice on ski manufacturing, including ski design, functionality, and product lineups. What's more, they will be able to develop skis for the Japanese market and make requests for production lines, which will likely be a big advantage for them as they expand into Japan in the future.
On the Japanese side, Kessle's Japanese base and service center has been located in Yuzawa Town, Niigata Prefecture, where I spent my elementary and junior high school days. In addition, preparations are slowly but surely underway for Kesleski racing services, a test drive center where new models can be tried out throughout the season, and contracts with brand ambassadors and influencers. The previous name in Japan was ``Kesley,'' but since the pronunciation was slightly different from the one in Austria, it was changed to ``Kessle'' after the country's revival in Japan.
Coincidentally, I was reunited with Kessle at such a timing, and I decided to continue my journey with Kessle, which was forcibly terminated in 1998, and to take up the challenge I had left behind as a player at that time, and now restart as a brand director. I never thought I could do it. I am grateful for this miraculous life, and I want to be myself and achieve results. In the future, we will not be limited to just selling skis, but will also establish the same sports culture that exists in Austria in Japan, as well as engage in initiatives that will revitalize the local economy and improve people's health and happiness. I would like to try my hand at handling products like this.
Information
Kestle Japan official website
https://kaestle.com/ja
Kastle Japan Official Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/kastle_jp/
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