Kaori Sakamoto To Retire From Competitive Figure Skating After 2026 Olympics
She began learning how to skate at the tender age of 3. Her coaches are Sonoko Nakano, Mitsuko Graham, and Sei Kawahara. Kawahara was himself a figure skater, winning a medal at the ISU Junior Grand Prix and debuting at the 2015 Skate Canada International. They have remained her coaches throughout her entire figure skating career. But that partnership will soon become a thing of the past. As Kaori Sakamoto is set to retire from competitive figure skating after the 2026 Olympics.
The 2026 winter Olympics will take place from Feb. 6 through Feb. 22, 2026 in Milano/Cortina, Italy. Sakamoto revealed her retirement plan at the opening ceremony for a new skating rink in her home city of Kobe in western Japan. The 25-year-old Japanese star spoke candidly about her reason for deciding to retire. She acknowledged that age is catching up with her saying:
“I feel like I have less than a year left,” she said. “I’ll be 29 at the following Olympics (in 2030), which is out of the question. I’ll try to bring things to a close the year I turn 26.”
“I’ve made the decision really fast. I felt now was the time,” she said. “I was more or less fixed on it since saying ‘I see two years as one cycle’ last year.”
“Winning at least silvers in both the individual and team events (at the Olympics) would be mission completed. The time left is short, so I’ll live each day to the fullest and hopefully the results turn out to be what I’m wishing for.”
And what better way to end a successful figure skating career than to go out on top at the Olympics.
Kaori Sakamoto To Retire From Competitive Figure Skating After 2026 Olympics
Sakamoto is a three=time figure skating world champion and two-time Olympic medalist. So competing at the 2026 winter Olympics will be familiar to her. She made her Olympic debut at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in South Korea. In fact, she won an Olympic bronze medal in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. And then took the silver medal in the world championships in March with gold to American Alysa Liu.
Just this past April her performance helped to lift Team Japan to a silver medal at the 2025 World Team Trophy. So she still has some gas left in the tank. We hope it will be enough to propel her to the Olympic podium one last time in 2026!
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