Kaori Sakamoto: “Right now, it’s not quite an Olympic fever, but there are a lot of kids coming to the rink. People are paying more attention to skating, and I don’t want that to be just a passing trend.”
Kaori Sakamoto, fresh off her fourth World Championship title, spoke at her alma mater’s entrance ceremony, reflecting on her student life, offering advice to new students, and sharing her future plans as a coach and skating ambassador.
original source: sponichi.co.jp dd. 7th April 2026
Kaori Sakamoto, the women’s figure skating world champion, appeared at the entrance ceremony of her alma mater, Kobe Gakuin University, on the 7th. Here’s a translation of her comments.
When asked for advice for new students entering her alma mater, she recalled struggling with course registration in her first year and said, “It’s about how skillfully you can live. If you try to do everything alone, it can be pretty tough. The best thing is to make friends who take the same classes.”
Balancing university life with her skating career was challenging, but she studied in the Department of Business Administration and enjoyed fulfilling days, making friends outside of skating as well. In February, she won silver medals in both the individual and team events at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. At her final competition in March, the World Championships, she claimed her record fourth title for a Japanese skater. Going forward, she will embark on a career as a coach.
Currently, her schedule is packed with ice shows, and she mentioned she had practiced that very morning. Regarding when she will start coaching, she said, “I’ll discuss it with my coach. It’s like, ‘Let me know if there’s a day I can join,’ so I think I’ll start joining private practices and lessons whenever I can.”
Sakamoto had long considered becoming a coach after retirement and studied business management with that goal in mind. She also wants to actively promote skating, saying, “Right now, it’s not quite an Olympic fever, but there are a lot of kids coming to the rink even during public sessions, and the number of people has really increased. People are paying more attention to skating, and I don’t want that to be just a passing trend. I need to take action myself so that people can feel skating is more accessible,” she said, looking ahead to the future.
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