Narumi Takahashi: “I had been managed by a coach about my weight since I was 9, so I ended up thinking it was a waste to eat since I had worked so hard to lose weight in training. I had my first period at 26, after I retired.”
Translation of the interview with Narumi Takahashi.
original source: news.yahoo.co.jp dd. 8th Junly 2024 by Risa Nagata
Narumi Takahashi is a Japanese retired pair skater and six-time Japanese national champion. With former partner Mervin Tran, Narumi Takahashi the 2012 World bronze medalist, the 2010 Junior World silver medalist, and the 2010–11 Junior Grand Prix Final champion. They were the first pair to win a World medal for Japan.
In the big interview posted on Yahoo Narumi talks about the start of her career, training in China, Japan and Canada, health issues and decision to retire. Here’s a translation of the comments.
Q: Could you tell us when you started skating and what led you to it?
Narumi Takahashi: I started skating when I was three years old. Because my older sister, who is two years older than me, was already taking lessons, I naturally started to skate as I followed her. Both my sister and I had pediatric asthma, and the doctor recommended that ‘skating or swimming would be beneficial’. The proximity of our house to the ice rink was another reason. Even though both of my parents had no experience with skating, it was my mother, who held my hand and guided me before a coach could teach me.
In the second grade, when I was infatuated with skating, I saw skaters performing well at the Nagano Olympics on TV. I had always had a strong desire to appear on TV, so when I saw that, I thought, ‘Ah! I found a good way! If I work hard at skating, I can appear on TV!’ That’s when I decided to continue with the skating I was working hard at.
Q: When you were in fourth grade, your father relocated and your family moved to China. Your move to China was your own wish, wasn’t it?
Narumi Takahashi: Yes. The choices for the relocation were America and China, but in China were Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, a pair of skaters whom I admired at the time. So, I thought there might be a chance to practice with them and told my parents that I wanted to go to China.
I was nine years old at the time, so I didn’t have the concept of becoming a professional yet. But at that time, I thought figure skating was the most precious thing in the world, so I wanted to be the best at figure skating.
Q: How was your life in China?
Narumi Takahashi: There were cultural differences, but since I was young, I was able to adapt quickly. At that time, I had feelings like ‘I want to be like everyone else,’ and ‘I don’t want to be found out as a Japanese,’ so I acted like I was Chinese.
I lived in Beijing, and all the skaters were from the northeast of China. China is vast and there are various dialects, so there are parts where it is not clear where each person is from and what dialect they have. The Chinese that I learned made the people in Beijing feel like I might be a child from the northeast, so I was able to fit in well (laughs).
When I first moved to China in the fourth and fifth grades, I attended a Japanese school, in the sixth grade I attended an international school.
When I was in the sixth grade, I went to Croatia for the first time for an international competition because I had been selected as a representative in the Novice category. The UK is strong in Novices. So I thought maybe if I could understand the words of the British coaches, I might get better at skating, and as soon as I got back from Croatia, I asked my parents to go through the process of enrolling me in an international school instead of going back to Japanese school.
I started doing pairs in junior high school. As I practiced with a Chinese partner, I wanted more communication outside of practice, and I wanted to have regular conversations other than skate terms. This time, I asked my parents, ‘I want to go to a local school to learn Chinese,’ and I attended a local junior high school.
Q: When you were in junior high school, you switched from single to pair skating and were doing well, you even were a part of the national team before you decided to return to Japan. What led to that?
Narumi Takahashi: After all, the very fact that a foreigner could practice with the Chinese national team was a major reform. As a result of the efforts of people from the China Skating Association and the Japan Skating Association, I, the first foreigner to join, was able to do so. In such a situation, I, who had awakened to pair skating, started this discipline, which had become something like a national sport in China, and teamed up with a Chinese boy. Due to the physical disparity between the tall boy and the petite me, we managed to place fifth in the national competition in our first year.
However, our joy was short-lived, the next day the Chinese Skating Association told us, ‘This is a national rink. If you want to continue practicing here, you have to take Chinese citizenship. That’s because we don’t want you to take this knowledge to Japan in the future.’ At that time, I had a very strong desire to be with everyone else, and I myself was delighted to want to take Chinese citizenship, but my parents persuaded me with conversations like, ‘What will you do with your life after you’re done with skating?’. As I couldn’t decide on my own, I returned to Japan in the latter half of the second term of the second year of junior high school.
Q: How was your life as a junior high school student after returning to Japan?
Narumi Takahashi: In China, my skating coach told me that dyeing my hair would be better, so I dyed my hair, and I was wearing the same gold necklace that I admired the Russian skaters to have, and I even wore a digital wristwatch (laughs).
After returning to Japan in that state, my parents were called in by the teacher before transferring to junior high school and were told, ‘If things stay this way, they will definitely be bullied.’ Anyway, I just took off the wristwatch, kept my hair dyed, wore the necklace, and entered junior high school. I wasn’t bullied, but there were instances where I wasn’t included by my peers.
At that time, I had morning skate practice, so right after lessons ended, I would get into my mother’s car, which came to pick me up, bypassing morning and end-of-day meetings, to go to practice. I had two good friends who would help me change and support me a lot, but from other students, there were comments like ‘Why is only skating treated exceptionally when we are also participating in club activities? That’s not fair.’ or ‘You depend too much on your mom’, or ‘You’re arrogant’. This ‘arrogant’ was really often said, like a nickname. In fact, I was arrogant (laughs).
Q: Please tell us about your life as a skater after returning to Japan.
Narumi Takahashi: As a skater, when I returned to my hometown in Chiba Prefecture, the ice rink I used to go to in my childhood was gone, and I had to travel every day to rinks in places like Yokohama.
As for my pair partner, I was too blessed when I was in China, and I thought I would find one if I ‘was looking,’ but I couldn’t easily. Because I had been working hard at pairs, I hadn’t been able to practice singles, and when I was practicing alone, I was hurt by comments from those around me like ‘Your level has dropped. You’ve gotten worse,’ ‘You were considered promising,’ ‘It would have been better if you didn’t go to China.’
The coaches who took good care of me when I was in Chiba also scattered all over the country, in places like Sendai, Tokyo, and Okayama, because the rink was gone. In both skating and school, I felt like I had nowhere to belong.
Q: How was it after entering high school?
Narumi Takahashi: Makuhari High School is located in Kachin Makuhari, but there was a skating coach at “Aqua Rink Chiba” in Inage Kaigan, so I continued skating along the extension of school. However, after a while, I made good friends and lied to my parents that I had “practiced” and played after school.
Amidst the pain of feeling like I didn’t know what I was doing because I couldn’t keep up with my studies and my skating was in such a state, I came to the conclusion that I really love figure skating and pairs! This happened around the end of the first term of my freshman year in high school.
At the start of the summer holiday, I begged my parents, saying, ‘Last chance! Please!’ and sent an email to a coach in Canada, Richard Gauthier, asking, ‘Give me a last opportunity to have a pairs tryout.’ I received a reply from the coach saying, ‘Come immediately,’ and my father seemed to feel like, ‘If this makes you give up,’ so they let me go to Canada with my mother to have the tryout.
As a freshman, I was enrolled in high school and studied abroad for a short time, but my experience was completely different when I participated in the Junior Grand Prix Series as a Japanese representative by forming a pair with Marvin Tran whom I met in Canada. It was like, ‘Wow! I can see so much light! I can see the world!’ I thought I would never meet such a great partner again, so I told my parents, ‘I want to live in Canada because I can’t practice with him while I’m in Japan,’ and they agreed. It was decided that I would transfer to a high school in Canada when I became a sophomore.
Q: In Canada, you were living with your mother, right?
Narumi Takahashi: Yes. I was always with my mother and we only ever went out together. My mother was going to a nutrition school, so she was an excellent cook and made meals where we could take in as many as 30 different items. She would hand-make udon noodles from scratch, fry spring rolls in a very small amount of fresh oil, as well as bake original cakes full of vegetables and dietary fiber that would make you more beautiful the more you ate.
Although things are completely different now, at that time even the coaching team didn’t have knowledge about weight, so they would vaguely say things like ‘You can fly if you’re lighter, and it’s even better for pairs because you get lifted’ or ‘You were in good shape when you weighed this much,’ and when I wasn’t in good shape, they would say things like ‘Have you put on weight? If so you should lose it.’ In my case, I had been managed by a coach about my weight since I was 9 years old in China, and it was normal for me to run until I lost 500 grams if I gained 500 grams, so I ended up thinking it was a waste to eat since I had worked so hard to lose weight in training. I didn’t eat much, so my mother made a menu that allowed me to consume a lot of nutrition even from a little food.
Q: Did you ever stop menstruating due to weight loss?
Narumi Takahashi: I had never had it in the first place. It seems like other athletes get their period when their body fat percentage exceeds a certain level, and it can stop when they lose weight, but I was a late bloomer and always thought it was a waste to eat, so I never exceeded the body fat percentage. Of course, doctors say it’s not good, but I felt good every day and everyone around me would say things like, ‘It’s good, isn’t it? Not having it,’ so I thought, ‘I guess that’s right. It must be tough when you have it.’ To be honest, I thought it was better not to have a period.
My mother was very worried because the doctor told her that I might develop osteoporosis and might not be able to have children in the future. But I thought at that time, ‘Being period-free is a blessing. Why do they say such things even though it’s not tough? If I’m good at skating now, I don’t care what happens in the future.’
I had my first period in 2018, after I retired. When I became calm after quitting skating, I realized that my life as an athlete was over and all that was left was a life without being an athlete, so I started to think it was a good thing to have it. However, when I think about doing the training I used to do with this heavy feeling in my body, I feel like I can’t do it, so I understand the feeling of everyone who said, ‘It’s good not to have it,’ which makes it a little complicated.
Q: Are there any particularly memorable events during your long athletic career?
Narumi Takahashi: The struggle to recover from injuries and the fact that I knew I would come back stronger each time I got injured was very significant for me. When you get injured, you taste rock bottom. Your body doesn’t move, and you can’t train. I had a serious injury where there was no outlook for a return, but in those situations, I always worked the hardest and absorbed something different. Although not everyone may feel this way, in my case, when I think, ‘I can grow the most in the process of crawling up from rock bottom,’ it gives me a lot of courage. Of all the experiences in my athlete life, the one I gained through injury is the most memorable.
In 2012, when I was 20, I had simultaneous surgery for a dislocated shoulder joint and a patella fracture. It took a long time to recover and was very painful. I couldn’t move my whole body and it was very painful, whether I was sleeping, sitting, or standing, and I felt like I was in total darkness mentally.
Q: 2012 was the year you won a bronze medal at the World Championships.
Narumi Takahashi: Yes. This was just after the World Championships and I was back in Japan for choreography. ‘Since we were third, we should be first next time!’ was the kind of situation it was (laughs).
Of course, in terms of competition, I do have thoughts like, ‘If only I hadn’t had that injury…’ My ankle had become loose and I was falling more frequently where everyone else was able to endure it. Also, after the injury, the difficulty level of the techniques gradually decreased.
But as for my values, my view of skating changed. This injury made me want to try the Olympics once again which I had given up on. I also realized the value of doing the best I can now.
I used to think, ‘It’s a waste to work so hard and fail!’ But even if I eventually fail after working hard, my thinking has changed to, ‘Because I have confidence in my hard work up to that point, that’s what leads to the next.’ Although I’ve always respected my pair partner, I had a childish side, and sometimes I would say things like, ‘Why did you fail there?’ or ‘Why did you get injured?’ But since experiencing injury myself, whether my partner or I get injured, I’ve been able to cope based on the idea of doing what I can right now.”
Q: You had surgery around September 2012, and then returned around May of the following year. In 2014, you had a hard schedule with the Sochi Olympics.
Narumi Takahashi: At that time, I was practicing with my shoulder still in a sling, which was very hard. There were times when my efforts didn’t seem to pay off, but I think the reason I was able to gradually climb the ranks was that my new pair partner at the time, Ryuichi (skater Ryuichi Kihara), was very supportive and worked hard for me, and that I was able to change my mind due to my injury.
Above all, the team was amazing. The team was complete with coaches, care trainers, mental trainers, and in Detroit, which was our practice base, the Japanese community even supported us with a change of pace. I think the Sochi Olympics was a team effort.
Q: You retired in March 2018. Could you tell us why you decided to do so?
Narumi Takahashi: I had been feeling stagnant for a while. I was beginning to feel the world was drifting away, and I was wondering if it was okay to keep doing what I was doing. My pair partner at the time, Ryo Shibata, was getting better and better, but I didn’t feel any growth in myself. I always felt like I was chasing the me of 2012, trying to get back to that time, but I was at my limit just maintaining the status quo.
I was also wondering if it was okay to continue skating at this age and even asked Mine during practice, ‘Should I keep skating?’ which must have been a strange question for him. But every time, he was a kind partner who would say, ‘If you don’t want to do it, you should quit. But I want to do this together, so if you can do your best, let’s do our best.’ Amidst all this, I ended up being an alternate for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. That, combined with the thought in the back of my mind that I needed to graduate from university as soon as possible because I had been on leave and hadn’t been able to attend much, and the fact that I wasn’t chosen for the Olympic team, led me to decide to retire.
While everyone in the world was getting better and better, once I realized that I was the only one standing still, I thought I might be holding back Ryo. It might be a beautiful excuse, but I decided to quit. However, I’ve always loved skating, I still love it very much. I love watching it, doing it, and thinking about it.
Q: In June 2021, you were elected as the youngest director in the history of the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) at the age of 29.
Narumi Takahashi: Really, all of it is just pure luck. However, I believe that the reason why I attract this luck is because I am proactive. Before becoming a director of the JOC, I took the lead in joining and participating in the Athlete Committee, trying to be proactive where I could. In the process, aspects such as being a woman or being young coincided, and I was chosen by chance.
Takahiko Kozuka, my senior, always leads the way for me. He recommended me for the Athlete Committee because he wanted me to be a conduit for conveying the opinions of athletes to the higher-ups. At every turn, Kozuka shows me the way.
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