First of all, nobody wanted to see Kaori Sakamoto go.
They all wanted her to stay forever, amazing us with her power and spirit on the ice, her bubbling joy off the ice.
They all knew: If she goes away, she’ll take the sun away.
But she was skating to “Je ne Regrette Rien” after all, quite planned from the beginning of the year. Her Olympics was to be her final glory but a single toe loop tossed her a silver medal. She dissolved into tears, frustrated. She could have quit then.
But no, Sakamoto returned to the world championships in historic Prague and won her fourth title, breaking records all the way.
She scored 158.97 in the free skate, not only a season’s best, but a personal best. At her first world win in 2022, she had stunned everyone (Russians were no longer there) with 155.77, a score she did not reach at her world titles in 2023 and 2024. But in her final skate, she surpassed it.
Her final tally was decisive: the 238.28 was 10 points higher than silver medalist Mone Chiba, who had overcome her Olympic fourth after being one of the favourites.
(Just for reference, Alysa Liu scored 150.29 for the free skate at the Olympics and 226.79 overall. Liu wasn’t in Prague. Liu would have had a fight on her hands in Prague.)
Nina Pinzarrone of Belgium finished a decisive third in Prague, astonished to be on the same podium as the Japanese stars.
Nobody could have scripted Sakamato’s swan song any better. She skated last. All pressure on her. All eyes on her. And saved the best skate of her life for her final triumph.
“it’s really great to end on this note,” said Sakamoto. “It was a harder season than I had imagined, but at the end of the season, everything came together and I’m happy to put a closure on my career.”
She will miss most the process of training hard, finding new programs, getting results at competitions, getting feedback, growing the program, and training hard again. She won’t have to do that anymore.
“Thinking back on it, I think it was the flower of my youth, really,” she said.
She won’t miss having to restrict her diet.
After the Olympics, she decided that she wanted to go on to the world championships before she even got home to Japan. Rinka Watanabe had been the alternate, most affected by her decision. So she called her . Earlier, Sakamoto had told her to be ready to go to worlds. But when Sakamoto returned home, she told Watanabe that she wanted to go to Prague after all because it would be her last worlds, and would it be okay with her?
Watanabe immediately said she wanted to see Sakamoto compete.
Sakamoto’s coach, Sonoko Nakano, who has been with her from the beginning, told her to take a week off. . Sakamoto listened, but she actually took 10 days off. And then she had to reset her mind and her body. And she was out of shape by this time.
When she went back to competition mode, she called the process “fun.”
Last week she was able to do her short and long programs completely clean.
“That’s how I got to getting that medal,” Sakamoto said.
She gives credit to her coaches who made her what she is. There are many who are now calling her the greatest of all time. Sakamoto said she is grateful , but – ever humble – “I feel almost embarrassed and ticklish about it,” she said. “ I did my job and it’s how my career has been built.”
The legends of her discipline she says are Midori Ito, Shizuka Arakawa, Mao Asada.
“It’s hard to imagine myself in the rank of those skaters,” Sakamoto said. ”I can’t see myself at the same level as they are.”
Think again. Although Sakamoto never did a triple Axel like Ito or Asada, her double Axel is a thing of beauty, travelling powerfully across the ice and into a long-held, beautiful edge. And it’s the way she does everything.
“If you ask me about Kaori’s great achievements in the free skate, you will not be able to stop me,” said Mone Chiba, in tears after Sakamoto’s skate. “I will go forever.
“Her greatest strengths would be her wonderful skating skills, the great flow that she has in her skating and on top of that her huge jumps that travel a distance,” Chiba said. “The double Axel is her trademark.
“She has also polished the quality of each element to its maximum and the performance shows us the fullest potential and beauty of this routine.
“Watching her skating is almost overwhelming. Her greatest achievement is being here and showing us what figure skating is.””
Chiba said she did all that she could do on free skate date and tried hard. “ But Sakamoto won’t be around next season. Chiba said she would like to take on the legacy Sakamoto has left.
One of Chiba’s secret goals to herself was to score higher than 220. And she did, with 228.47. Never mind that Chiba became the first skater to get a perfect row of 5s for her layback spin. You have to see it to believe how brilliant it is: her unbelievable positions and her ability to speed up the spin, even when she goes into a Biellmann.
Chiba, only 20 (Sakamoto is 25) said she’s grateful to have had the experiences she’s had this season, and she’s felt every feeling a skater could feel: that she can’t do it anymore, and that, yes she can.
“Really it all came down to this last event,” she said. “I also think that this is probably the season where I experienced most frequently skating last in the group, so I’m sure that will make me a much stronger skater from now on.”
Women’s skating is in good hands in Japan, as ever.
Pinzarrone was a dark horse coming into the event, but both of her skates were wistful and lovely, with her long, extended lines and pointed toes and introspective routines. She wore a delicate pink costume for “Send in the Clowns:” for the short program and bright red for “Un Reve” freeskate, another little masterpiece of loveliness.
Pinzarrone skated 20th of 24 and when she took the leader’s chair after her skate, she just enjoyed the skates of the others and exulted in the fact that she had succeeded after a tough season overcoming injury. But she had never sat in the leader’s chair before. This was new.
When she became third, at first she didn’t realize what she had done. When Chiba was skating, reality set in, that she was a medalist. Tears filled her eyes.
She had zero expectations coming into Prague. Getting a medal for Belgium is a singular event, although skaters like Loena Hendrickx put the country on the skating map. The high-octane Hendrickx withdrew because of injury.
“It’s really special that Belgium gets medals at such high-level competitions,” Pinzarrone said. “We really are not a skating country nor are we becoming such .”
Had you suggested to Pinzarrone a few months ago that she would win a world bronze medal, she would not have believed it.
She said it was very hard to come back from her early season injury. The problems started last season when she suffered pain and inflammation in her right ankle that necessitated injections.
But during training last May, she landed a simple jump and heard a crack: She had broken her pinky toe. Sounds simple, but she had a wound that became infected that required surgery. She was off ice for four months and had to withdraw from all of her Grand Prix events. She began to wonder if she would make it to the Olympics or even worlds.
The way she skated this week, you would not have known it.
She had a front-row seat to watch Sakamoto create history and was moved. “I was just so emotional,” Pinzarrone said. Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito were there, too, and “we were almost crying,” Pinzarrone said.
“It was so special to see it one more time and she did so well. ‘Its just unbelievable what she does and what she brings to skating and I think we will all miss her.”
Pinzarrone and Sakamoto had one thing in common: French born Benoit Richaud choreographed both of their short programs. For Sakamoto, he picked “Time to Say Goodbye,” “He said it was perfect for me and I should skate to it,” Sakamoto said. “It was his choice.”
Sakamoto spent time in Montreal having “Je Ne Regrette Rien” choreographed by Marie-France Dubrueil. Sakamoto wanted to skate to this Edith Piaf music.
”I didn’t feel too emotional listening to these songs,” she said. “I know that people get emotional and cry but for the skater there is no room to get emotional. I just try my best and do all that I can, so there is no space to get emotional to the music.’
Sakamoto has sacrificed so much for her career. “The Olympic season is a good time to put closure for now,” she said. “I have no regrets. That’s how I feel today.”
Leave a Reply