Wakaba Higuchi: “I secured the Olympic quota with my own performance, and I want to use that opportunity myself.”
Wakaba Higuchi announces retirement after the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympic season
original source: Nikkansports dd. June 28th 2025 Daisuke Fujitsuka
Wakaba Higuchi (24), an Olympic silver medalist in the team event at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, announced her decision to retire from competitive figure skating after the 2025–26 season. On June 27, she performed at the opening of the ice show “Dream on Ice” (DOI), where she shared her reflections and goals for her final competitive season leading up to the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics next February. Here’s a translation of her comments.
“I’ve decided to approach this season as my last. My goal is the Olympics, but I want to treat every competition as if it’s my final one and give my all in each one,” Higuchi revealed during the performance.
Initially planning to retire this season, Higuchi reconsidered after earning Japan’s Olympic qualification spot:
“I secured the Olympic quota with my own performance, and I want to use that opportunity myself. At the Beijing Olympics, I thought, ‘I want to perform on the Olympic stage again,’ and this desire reignited my motivation to compete for another season. While I know I have mental weaknesses, by setting this season as my last, I believe I can give everything and achieve meaningful results. That’s what led me to this decision,” Higuchi explained.
On this day, she debuted her new short program “My Way,” which she described as an encapsulation of her skating journey:
“This program represents my skating career. My goal is to perform in a way that I can be satisfied with and to express the depth of my experiences through skating.”
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