REUTERS
June 20, 2025 at 16:15 JST
Kaori Sakamoto wins the silver in Women's Free Skating during the ISU World Figure Skating Championships at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, March 28, 2025. (Imagn Images via REUTERS)
Three-times world figure skating champion Kaori Sakamoto is to retire after the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics next year, the Japanese 25-year-old told reporters in Kobe on Friday.
Sakamoto became the first woman in 56 years to win the figure skating world singles title three times in a row last year, matching the feat of American Peggy Fleming, who won three world titles between 1966-68.
“I feel like I have less than a year left. I’ll be 29 at the following Olympics, which is out of the question,” Kyodo news reported Sakamoto as saying. “I’ll try to bring things to a close the year I turn 26.”
Sakamoto, who won bronze at the 2022 Winter Olympics, missed out on a fourth straight world title in March when she finished runner-up to American Alysa Liu.
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