For anyone keeping a short list on the favorites for gold in women’s figure skating in 2026, Kaori Sakamoto better be on it. Kaori became the first Japanese woman to win a world title since Mao Asada in 2014. She also became the first Japanese skater in any discipline to claim three consecutive world championships—and the first woman to do so since American Peggy Fleming did from 1966 to 1968.
While Team USA took home the gold in the Figure Skating Team Event, Sakamoto won both the women’s short and long program segments of the event with ease, achieving a season’s best score in the free skate of 148.62 points. (The world’s top tier senior-level skaters usually land between 135 and 150.)
“Although I did have a few misses here and there, misses with the jumps as well, seeing that I scored No.1 in the women’s category was a big deal, and I felt really emotional,” Sakamoto told reporters after the Team Event final. “Also the fact that Team Japan came up to the top, as well, has been a relief, as well as just a very good feeling. In my eyes, everybody has done a gold-medal performance, and so it really doesn’t matter what color medal we get.”
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Kaori Sakamoto competes during the Women’s Long Program of the Figure Skating Team Event on February 8.
Below, five facts about Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto:
Kaori started skating when she was four years old.
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Kaori at the 2025 World Championships in Boston.
Born in 2000 in Kobe, Japan, Kaori got into skating after seeing the sport on television when she was very young. As a child, she looked up to fellow Japanese skater Akiko Suzuki, a world bronze medalist in 2012 and the 2013 Japanese national champion. Kaori started competing nationally and internationally as a junior in 2013 and won the Asian Open trophy that year. She moved up to the senior ranks in 2017 after claiming her first junior national title and went on to place third at the World Junior Championships.
She is a three-time Olympic medalist.
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Kaori on the podium after the women’s long program in 2022.
Kaori made her Olympic debut at the 2018 PyeongChang Games, finishing sixth in the women’s singles event. She returned to the Winter Olympics four years later in Beijing, helping Japan win silver in the team competition and earning a bronze medal in singles.
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Kaori with her bronze medal in 2022.
However, Kaori didn’t receive her silver medal for the team event until the Paris Olympics in 2024 due to the investigation on a doping scandal involving a Russian skater. Kaori won a second silver medal in Milan already with Japan in the Team Event
Kaori balanced graduating from college with skating.
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Kaori is beloved by fans around the world.
Kaori attended classes remotely at Kobe Gakuin University, where she graduated with a degree in economics in 2023. She has said in interviews that she plans to retire from skating after the 2026 Olympics. “I think this is a good time to end my career rather than doing it half-heartedly for two or three years,” she said in 2025, adding she would like to go into coaching after retiring from competitive skating. “If I can win a silver medal or better in both the team and individual Olympic competitions, I will have achieved my goal. I would like to produce more athletes from Kobe who can spread their wings and take to the world stage, so first of all, I want to do what I can while I’m still active. I want to do my best to get results and attract even a little bit of attention.”
During an segment that aired on NBC ahead of her long program during the Figure Skating Team Event on February 8, Kaori said she would like to go into coaching, and she already leads classes for younger skaters at the rink where she trains in Japan.
“Kaori is a brilliant skater, and it’s not just about results, she has had so many achievements throughout her career,” Kaori’s teammate and Japanese ice dancer Ice dancer Masaya Morita told reporters at the Olympics last week. “She’s great when it comes to building up the atmosphere of Team Japan. She’s always at the centre of the team, encouraging everyone. I don’t want her to retire, but this is a decision that she made, so all we can do is to celebrate her final performance with her.”
She still gets nervous before big competitions.
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Kaori at the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan in 2025.
Despite being one of the best in the world at what she does, and seemingly with ease, Kaori is just like anyone else: she gets nervous before performing in front of crowds too. “I get nervous easily, so I never get used to it,” she told NBC in 2024. “Every time I compete the worlds, I cannot predict how I will feel when I stand on the ice.”
She does not have an Instagram account.
Despite being a member of Generation Z, Kaori doesn’t seem to be on social media, at least not publicly.
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.
