Keiichiro Nagashima is a Japanese long track speed skater specialising in the sprint distances 500 and 1000 metres.
Education
The Nagano races were the first sprint races of the season, and in his debut race Nagashima finished third, 0.05 seconds behind joint winners Shimizu and Jeremy Wotherspoon. However, he failed to keep up this performance in the rest of the season's races. His best placing in the other races was 13th in Erfurt, and though he was not relegated to the B division on 500 metres, he finished 18th in the overall World Cup and did not qualify for the World Single Distance Championships.
He finished seventh in the 100 metre World Cup, however, after taking fifth place in Heerenveen.
Career
Nagashima spent three years competing in domestic Japanese races before getting selected for the World Cup sprint event in Nagano in December 2004. Before that, he had several fourth-place finishes in Japanese Championships, getting pipped to the third place in the October 2004 2 × 500 metre Championship by then world-record holder Hiroyasu Shimizu. Nagashima started the 2006 season by winning his first domestic medal, taking bronze at the Japanese 2 × 500 championships, 0.610 points behind Joji Kato.
Once more Nagashima was selected for the World Cup circuit, finishing in the top ten four times. However, at the World Sprint Championships in Heerenveen a month later, Imai was well ahead of Nagashima. Nagashima finished 22nd in the overall classification and was not in the top ten on any distance.
Nagashima did beat Kato and Shimizu, however. He finished the season by placing 18th in the final World Cup race, thus ending 14th in the overall 500 metre World Cup standings despite not turning up for the Inzell and Collalbo sprints.
Membership
He is a member of the Nidec Sankyo speed skating team.
