Career
He ranked among the most successful sportsmen of its discipline, particularly in the 1990s. Funaki is known for his special variant of the V-style, in which the body lies flatter between the skis than usual. Funaki began ski jumping at the age of eleven.
His birthplace Yoichi is also the home of Yukio Kasaya, who was a Japanese national hero with his Normal Hill victory in the 1972 Winter Olympics at Sapporo.
Kasaya was also Funaki"s role model. Funaki had his first appearance on December 20, 1992 in Sapporo.
Several weeks later, he was leading the Four Hills Tournament in total tour points after the third event. In the second part of the last event at Bischofshofen, he had the longest jump of 131.5 meters, but fell during the landing - and the overall tour victory went to Austrian Andreas Goldberger, and Funaki finished second.
The high point of his career was in the 1998 Winter Olympic Games at Nagano.
And together with the Japanese team, he placed 2nd in the Team large hill in 1997, 1999 and 2003. In recent times, Funaki is only moderately successful despite some opportunities for successes. In the 2004/05 season, he finished 13th in the standing.
Standings
Wins.