Narumi Takahashi: “There was absolutely no sense of achievement at the Sochi Olympics.” and “Pair skating was unpopular and we were cut out of group photos (laughs).”
Interview with Narumi Takahashi.
original source: number.bunshun.jp dd. December 6th 2024 by Shun Sato
In an Interview posted on Sports Graphic Number Web, former Japanese pair skater Narumi Takahashi talks about her career, Olympics, pair skating in Japan and life after sports. Here’s a translation.
Narumi Takahashi, who represented Japan in pair figure skating at the Sochi Olympics, retired from active competition 6 years ago. After retirement, Takahashi has started doing various sports, including ice hockey, marathon running, and soccer, and has recently become a frequent presence on television variety shows.
“There was absolutely no sense of achievement at the Sochi Olympics,” told Narumi. In the individual pair event at the 2014 Olympics Narumi Takahashi and Ryuichi Kihara finished 18th, and in the team event, 5th.
“It was my first Olympics, so there was some fun. But, the regret and dissatisfaction from not achieving good results were more overwhelming. My feelings were already moving on to the next thing, and like the lingering feeling after going to a theme park with a friend, they faded away quickly. I hope it doesn’t sound bad, but it felt like, ‘Is this all there is?'”
Takahashi’s journey in pair skating began at the age of nine in China. The pair achieved sixth place at the Chinese Championships. When it was time to enter middle school, although her father’s job required them to return to Japan, Takahashi wanted to stay in China to master pairs skating.
“China is a powerhouse in pairs skating, and the coaches told me that if I continued, there was a possibility of becoming the world’s best. If I became a Chinese citizen, they would support everything from clothing, food, and settlement, so I wanted to stay. However, although my parents usually opposed my decisions 90% of the time but eventually accepted them, they never allowed me to stay in China.”
Upon returning to Japan, what Narumi felt acutely was that both the training environment and recognition of pairs skating were incomparably lower than in China.
“It wasn’t zero, it was negative. When I returned to Japan, I found a partner, but we couldn’t practice at all… With too few rinks and too many skaters, it was dangerous for pairs to skate among them. So, I would skate alone mixed in with the general public from 4 PM to 8 PM, then go home to sleep, and then have the rink booked from 3 AM to 5 AM, after which I headed straight to school. My life was a mess, it was extremely expensive and incredibly difficult.
On the train between Chiba and Yokohama, where the rink was located, I was so exhausted that I’d rush to grab a seat the moment someone got off. When I got home, I would sleep like a log, wake up in the middle of the night to go to the rink, and my daily routine was just cycling between school and home.
The training environment was the worst, so I even considered going back to singles, but skating alone felt somewhat unsatisfactory and not exciting. However, I felt I wasn’t progressing in my skills and I questioned what I was even doing it for… I knew I had to practice, so I went to the rink, but I became afraid to step onto the ice and sometimes skipped practice.”
Wanting to give pair skating one more try, Takahashi flew to Canada during the summer break of 2007 and had several try-outs.
“The first person I met was Mervin Tran. He was a beginner in pairs, but he threw me exactly how I wanted, and our timing with knee bending matched. ‘Knee bending’ means skating by flexing your knees up and down, and our sense for this really matched well, so we were really compatible on the ice (laughs). He also liked Japanese anime like ‘ONE PIECE’ and ‘NARUTO,’ so we had a lot in common. Despite being Canadian, he said he would be happy to skate for Japan at the World Championships.”
Mervin also met a particular criterion that Takahashi emphasized when choosing a partner.
“When you team up, you live and train together with the intensity of being married, so I always make sure to check if my partner is ‘odor free’ (laughs). Mervin didn’t have a problem there, and I could feel his commitment to pairs. This was a turning point in my skating career.”
After summer break ended, Narumi Takahashi didn’t return to Japan but transferred to a high school in Canada. They rented a house a three-minute walk from the rink, and trained while living there with mom and Mervin. They didn’t have any sponsors, so they lived frugally yet heavily immersed in skating. Although it was tough, they faced various challenges unique to pair skating.
“The most troublesome thing is catching a cold. If one person catches a cold and unknowingly continues to practice, it spreads to the partner. But figure skating is such a delicate and sensitive sport that you have to practice every day. Even if you feel slightly ill, if you keep practicing without taking a break, both partners can catch a cold and their condition worsens.
Weight fluctuation is also a tricky issue because we trust each other so much that it sometimes becomes hard to comment on it. When I see my partner struggling to lift me, I think I should lose weight to make it easier for him. I have a somewhat masochistic personality, so losing weight wasn’t too much of a burden for me, but aligning our conditions throughout the season was extremely challenging, and there were only a few times a year when we both felt good.”
At the 2012 World Championships, they won a bronze medal. However, afterwards Narumi dislocated a left shoulder and also injured a right knee patella, which forced a long-term break. During that time, the news came that the team event would be introduced at the Sochi 2014 Olympics and Japan lacked a pair team. That’s when Takahashi was approached.
“I felt like the opportunity suddenly appeared and I didn’t know what to do.”
Since you need to have a citizenship to participate in the Olympics, aiming for the Sochi Olympics meant having to break up the pair with Mervin. In 2013, Takahashi teamed up with Ryuichi Kihara and secured their spot for the Sochi Olympics.
“I was surprised to see how different the environment was once you become an Olympian representative for Japan. Grants were provided, and sponsors gave even more generous support, allowing us to continue our training abroad at a high quality.”
“I had hoped to repay everyone who has supported me with results, but unfortunately, as I mentioned at the beginning, we didn’t reach the medal podium in both the individual and team events.
I was more nervous for the team event than the individual. Yuzu-kun, Mao-chan, and everyone else, we’ve known each other since we started skating and get along well. But it was the first team event, and I didn’t know what to say or how to cheer, and we were all being considerate of each other. Moreover, if I made a mistake, it felt like I’d be dragging everyone down, so there was quite a tense atmosphere. Unlike a typical team spirit of “Let’s do this,” it was more about each of us performing and getting results.”
“Yuzu-kun and Mao-chan were shining in Sochi. I wanted to stand in the same place as a pair, but I felt like I was just part of the team and wasn’t particularly expected to achieve much, and I didn’t deliver results. Pairs skating really isn’t popular… During the press conferences before the competition, when it came time to take photos, they’d say, “Pairs and ice dance please step one pace back.” I wondered why, and when I looked at the sports newspaper the next morning, the photos used were often just of the central players, cutting out the pairs and ice dancers. Now the ‘Riku-Ryu’ pair is popular, and I wished I could have achieved that kind of fame.”
Although Narumi Takahashi continued with pair skating after the Sochi Olympics, she retired from active competition in 2018.
“I retired completely full of regrets. I lost to Ryuichi-kun’s pair at Nationals and missed out on the Pyeongchang Olympics, which was really tough. Also, although I had support from sponsors and everyone, I no longer felt I was worth it, and I couldn’t see a future…I didn’t feel a sense of completion, but I accepted the reality that I couldn’t get the results.” Takahashi, after 23 years of skating, decided to leave the sport and walk a different path.
After retiring in 2018, Narumi Takahashi became a board member of the JOC in 2021.
Following the Tokyo Olympics, a first-anniversary commemorative event was held, and the “Pride House Tokyo,” a venue for promoting LGBTQ and sports, had a booth there. Javier Raja, a gay skater friend of Narumi, was participating, so they decided to hold a talk show together. Takahashi had felt since adolescence that her experiences of love and sexuality were different from others. As the conversation progressed and she was asked about her sexuality, Takahashi responded:
“If I were in the LGBTQ community, I guess I would be Q.” This statement was taken and reported as Takahashi coming out as LGBTQ.
“After that comment, I was contacted by several sexual minority classmates who said it gave them a lot of courage, and a transgender friend told me it prompted them to marry someone of the same sex. Knowing that my words were of some help makes me feel that speaking out was a very good thing.
However, at that time, I said I would identify as Q, but honestly, I’m not sure. I do feel emotions like fondness, but they have never led to romantic love. Defining it too rigidly might obscure the essence, so I choose not to set any labels and continue to just be myself.”
Speaking of the relationships in a pair, Narumi told, “If you’ve been with your skating partner for a long time, it’s natural to develop romantic feelings. However, in my case, I’ve never really felt what might be described as romantic attraction towards not just my partner, but men or women in general. I mean, yes, my mood lifts when I see my partner’s face at practice, and it’s fun when we travel abroad together. I also felt a bit annoyed when my partner was getting along well with another girl. But when asked if that’s love, I don’t consider it to be love in my own view.”
“There is no doubt that they were the most important person to me. I trust them, but they’re just not the type of person I develop those kinds of feelings for. The partners I’ve had in the past had girlfriends or wives, but they also really cherished me. I think it’s because we were pair partners, and I also valued our relationship a lot. It’s not romantic, but it’s a bit of an unusual feeling (laughs).”
“When I tell friends I haven’t been in a relationship even after turning 30, everyone is shocked and says, ‘That’s crazy,’ but I didn’t really mind (laughs). When I was skating, I wasn’t interested in relationships and never felt like dating anyone. But now, I am interested and think about wanting to be in love every day (laughs). Everyone seems to be troubled by their romantic relationships. I wonder how they can like someone so much, and I want to experience all those troubles of being in love too. I like to suffer a bit (laughs).”
The shift in Takahashi’s feelings occurred at a friend’s wedding. While enjoying the reception, she felt something snap inside her, and she started to feel like she wanted to get married.
“Wanting to get married is a bigger deal in my life than even going to the Olympics, and it’s quite shocking (laughs). It was surprising for a talentless person like me to go to the Olympics, and even more surprising to think about marriage when I thought I had no chances with it. Probably, everyone, including myself, would be surprised if I got married (laughs).”
“Even after becoming an adult, I lived near my parents, they managed my money, and they did all the cooking, so I never became independent. Maybe because of that, my family kind of feels like it’s fine the way it is now and they don’t really support my romantic endeavors (laughs).”
Since retiring as an athlete, Narumi Takahashi have been taking on new sports challenges like ice hockey, full marathons and soccer, with the goal of becoming a public figure in the entertainment industry.
“I view appearing on TV and trying various sports all as ‘competitions.’ When you enter the competition of television, you are bound to elicit various reactions. I see these as feedback from countless judges who watch. Just like in skating, where you can perform a good jump and still receive both good and bad reviews, I was always very curious about what kind of judge I would face.
On social media, there are people who say things like ‘die’ or ‘ugly,’ and it certainly hurts. I don’t retaliate, but I do wish that those who casually leave such comments could understand the pain they cause.”
“Television reaches a wide audience, including those who might not otherwise be interested. When I was skating pairs, no one watched or appreciated the process unless we produced results. It’s unavoidable as an athlete, but it was tough. I may not be getting much attention now, but I’ve been given this chance and I want many people to watch and get to know me,” Takahashi told.
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