The Smile the Whole Arena Knows

There is a Kaori Sakamoto smile that figure skating fans know well. It's huge and infectious and slightly surprised, like she can't quite believe what just happened even though she's been the best in the world for four years straight. When she finishes a program and that smile appears, the whole arena warms up.

In Milan, at her third and final Olympic Games, the 25-year-old Japanese skater chased the one title she didn't have - and came closer than ever. She won individual silver with 224.90 points, just 1.89 behind Alysa Liu's gold. She won team event silver. She left the 2026 Olympics with four career Olympic medals and one of the most decorated resumes in the history of women's figure skating.

The individual gold eluded her. And she was honest about how that felt.

But she also said something that revealed how far she'd come: she felt like the bronze medal last time was a miracle, and now she was wearing a better medal and frustrated - which probably says a lot about the work she put in over the last four years.

It says everything.

The Girl From Kobe

Sakamoto was born on April 9, 2000, in Kobe, Japan. She started skating on November 18, 2003 ��� she and her family remember the exact date - and has trained with coaches Sonoko Nakano, Mitsuko Graham, and Sei Kawahara ever since. She graduated from Kobe Gakuin University in September 2023. Her hobbies are swimming and jigsaw puzzles.

Her rise through the Japanese junior ranks was steady. She earned medals on the Junior Grand Prix circuit, won World Junior bronze in 2017, and made the Japanese national team as a teenager. Her international breakthrough came in 2018, when she won the Four Continents Championship and made her first Olympic team at age 17.

At the PyeongChang Olympics, she finished sixth. She was good, but not yet dominant.

That would change.

The Three-Time World Champion

Sakamoto's ascent to the top of women's figure skating is one of the great stories of the sport's recent history. After the 2022 Beijing Olympics, where she won individual bronze, she won the 2022 World Championships in Montpellier - becoming the first Japanese woman to win Worlds since Mao Asada in 2014. Then she won again in 2023. And again in 2024.

Three consecutive World titles. The first woman to accomplish that since Peggy Fleming from 1966 to 1968 - a gap of 56 years. The first Japanese skater to do it in any discipline, ever.

What makes Sakamoto special isn't just consistency - it's the quality of her skating. She's known for extraordinary speed across the ice, the height and flow of her jumps, and the sheer power of her step sequences. Where some skaters are artists and others are technicians, Sakamoto is both - a skater whose programs have the full-body commitment of a dancer and the fearless attack of an athlete.

The Emotional Rollercoaster This Season

Sakamoto's final season was a ride. At the Grand Prix Final in December in Nagoya - on home ice in Japan - she was fifth after the short program, having doubled her opening triple lutz. She was visibly devastated. She bounced back in the free skate to win the segment and finish third overall with 218.80 points, but the tears that followed were less about the result and more about the unforgiving pressure she was putting on herself.

At the Japanese Championships, she won her sixth national title - extending a record streak - and was named to the Olympic team for a third consecutive Games. She wept again, this time because it was her final competition in Japan as a competitive skater. Twenty-two years on the ice since that day in November 2003, and the end was in sight.

Milan: Dominant in the Team Event

If there were any doubts about Sakamoto's form heading into the individual event, she erased them in the team event. She was the best woman on the ice - in both programs.

In the short program on February 6, skating to "Time to Say Goodbye," she earned 78.88 points with a nearly flawless performance. She placed first, ahead of Liu and everyone else. In the free skate, performing an Edith Piaf medley, she was even better - 148.62 points, winning the segment convincingly.

She landed six triple jumps, earned top marks on her step sequence and spins, and delivered the kind of complete, committed performance that has become her signature.

Japan narrowly lost the team gold to the United States by a single point - decided in part by Ilia Malinin's free skate in the men's event. Sakamoto earned a team silver, her second consecutive. But she had done everything she could.

The Individual Event: Silver, and Frustration

Sakamoto entered the individual event as the pre-eminent favorite, having topped both women's segments in the team event. The competition was fierce: Liu was the reigning World Champion, Amber Glenn was a three-time U.S. champion with a triple axel, Japan's 17-year-old Ami Nakai had defeated Sakamoto twice during the season, and Adeliia Petrosian was a wildcard as an Individual Neutral Athlete.

In the short program on February 17, Sakamoto skated "Time to Say Goodbye" beautifully, scoring 77.23 to finish second behind Nakai, who stunned the field with a 78.71 that included a triple axel. Liu was third with 76.59. The margin was razor-thin at the top.

In the free skate on February 19, Sakamoto performed her Edith Piaf medley with the commitment and emotion the skating world has come to expect from her. She started well with a double axel and triple flip, but dropped the second jump on a triple combination - a costly error she couldn't recover from later in the program. She scored 147.67 for a total of 224.90, a strong result but not quite enough. Liu, skating after her, delivered seven clean triples and scored 150.20 for a total of 226.79 to take the gold. Nakai, despite finishing ninth in the free skate, held on for bronze with 219.16.

Sakamoto won silver - the best individual Olympic result of her career, and an upgrade from her Beijing bronze. But it wasn't the title she wanted.

After the result, Sakamoto spoke with a candor that only deepened the respect the skating world has for her. She didn't pretend the silver was enough. She didn't hide behind platitudes. She said what she felt.

Her coach Nakano told her to now "train an Olympic gold medallist" - a torch-passing moment that signaled the next chapter of Sakamoto's life in skating.

The Legacy

There may be one more chapter before the final bow. Sakamoto is on the entry list for the 2026 ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Prague (March 24-29), alongside Olympic champion Alysa Liu, bronze medalist Ami Nakai, and Amber Glenn. After the Olympics, she was non-committal - "Honestly, I'm not sure" - but if she does take the ice in Prague, it would be the last competitive performance of a career that has spanned 22 years.

Whether or not Prague happens, Sakamoto's career is already one of the greatest in the sport's history. Four Olympic medals. Three consecutive World titles - the first woman to do that since Peggy Fleming in 1968. Six-time Japanese national champion. 2023 Grand Prix Final champion. The only Japanese woman to compete in three Olympic Winter Games in singles. She plans to become a figure skating coach after retirement - influenced by her lifelong coaches and her two older sisters, who are both teachers.

The one thing she didn't win was Olympic individual gold. But her coach's words said it all: the next Japanese skater who does win it will almost certainly have been shaped by Sakamoto's example - her power, her artistry, her longevity, her joy.

The whole skating world was rooting for her. And in a way, she gave everyone exactly what they needed - not the perfect ending, but the honest one.

Kaori Sakamoto - Quick Facts

The Adults Skate Too Take

At 25, Sakamoto is far from old by any normal standard. But in the context of women's figure skating - a sport that has historically been dominated by teenagers and plagued by controversies about age, burnout, and the cost of early specialization - she's a veteran. And for four years, she was the best in the world.

What makes Sakamoto special for adult skaters isn't just her longevity. It's her joy. She skated for 22 years and she still gasped when she saw her score. She still pumped her fist after a clean program. She still loved it.

She didn't get the gold. She said so, and she didn't pretend it was fine. But she also recognized what four years of relentless work had built - a career that went from bronze to silver, from hopeful to dominant, from good to one of the greatest. That's not a consolation prize. That's a legacy.

In a sport that eats its young, Kaori Sakamoto is proof that you can be 25, at your third Olympics, and still feel the same rush you felt as a kid in Kobe stepping on the ice for the first time. That's the goal, really. Not the medals. The feeling.

Frequently Asked Questions About Kaori Sakamoto