Japan's Nao Kodaira opened her World Cup season with another 500-meter victory on Friday, while her compatriots captured their eighth straight World Cup women's team pursuit win.Skating on home ice at Tokachi Oval in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, defending Olympic 500-m champion Kodaira won in 37.496 seconds, 0.54 ahead of compatriot Maki Tsuji, who was third. Austria's Vanessa Herzog was runner-up, 0.12 back of Kodaira.The 32-year-old Kodaira has won 30 straight races over 500 meters in all competitions, but admitted it was not a good performance."I realized today that I had the str…READ FULL ARTICLE