Retiring figure skater Kaori Sakamoto grateful for ‘priceless time’, ties knot
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Japanese figure skater and four-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto all smiles during her retirement press conference in Kobe on May 13.
PHOTO: AFP
TOKYO – Japanese figure skating star and four-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto called her decorated career “a priceless time” during her retirement press conference on May 13, when she also announced her marriage.
The 26-year-old, who announced in June 2025 her decision to end her competitive career after the 2025-26 season, bowed out in style by winning her last world championship in March in her farewell performance in Prague.
“Looking objectively at myself standing on the rink (now) as a non-competitor, I’ve come to realise again that it really was the springtime of my life,” Sakamoto, who eclipsed Mao Asada with a Japanese record of four world titles, reflected on her career in her native city of Kobe.
“Once I said I’d go for another four years after the Beijing Games (in 2022), I was ready to accept they would be my last. I had made my mind up then.”
Having begun the sport at the age of four under her lifelong coach Sonoko Nakano, Sakamoto originally excelled with her jumps at the start of her senior career, before developing into a skater equipped with both pace and a wide range of expressions.
She competed in three Winter Olympics and won individual bronze in her second at the Beijing Games in 2022, when she captured the first of her three consecutive world titles.
“The first world championship in Montpellier (in France) was the most memorable, along with the last worlds,” she said. “I had to get myself back up to my peak condition again after winning my first Olympic medal in Beijing, and it was a hardship that only those competing in both competitions could experience.”
But an Olympic gold eluded her, as she finished a close second to Alysa Liu of the US at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics back in February, which left her with a tinge of regret.
“I was defensive,” Sakamoto said in describing what the Olympics meant to her. “It was a tournament in which I didn’t want to make mistakes the most. The three Games finished while I wasn’t quite able to be aggressive.”
She won four Olympic medals overall, nonetheless, having helped Japan claim team silvers both in China and Italy. Her jovial character was central to those successes, even if she was not deliberately looking to lift the mood around her.
“I’ve never forced myself into a smile, I had it because I enjoyed those moments,” she said. “Of course, there were moments I cried in tournaments or practice for not being satisfied with myself, I’ve had lots of them this season too. But I tried to cry just on that day and switch my mindset.”
Grateful to her mother for her long-term support as well as the rapport she built with recently retired duo Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, Japan’s first Olympic gold medallists in pair skating, Sakamoto looked ahead to her future in the sport.
“While I can move, I’m planning to perform in ice shows and hold classes to have more people get to know figure skating,” she said. “Simply speaking, I want to be like my coach Nakano. I want to help not just with technique but also with character building.” KYODO NEWS
