Kaori Sakamoto closed out her competitive career with her fourth world title in the women's singles competition at the Figure Skating World Championships in Prague, Czechia on Friday. The 25-year old wrapped up a historic skating career which included four Olympic medals, including two silvers at this year's Milan Cortina Games, with a personal-best 238.28 after an emotional free skate performance at O2 Arena.
The swish of feet on clay and sand has a soothing, rhythmic feel, as wrestlers at a sumo stable in Tokyo propel themselves across the ring, their bodies low, eyes fixed on an imaginary foe. But by the time their morning training ends an hour later, all but one of the rikishi are bathed in sweat, gulping lungfuls of air, their strength waning with every shove.
By the time the uninjured judge had regained her composure, Nishida's 186cm frame was sliding quickly along the ground towards her, his nose down and his hands by his side, triggering laughter and applause among the spectators and his teammates. Nishida was not finished, however. He then got to his knees and continued to bow profusely, at one point clasping the palms of his hands together.
"We have a golden retriever, and so I walk her three or four miles a day, and I do a weight training class twice a week," says Brown, 62, of Arlington, Va. She knows muscle mass will decline without regular strength training. "We have a fun group with a personal trainer and we call ourselves the Beastie Girls," she says, describing how her group helps her stick with it. She also plays tennis and golf.
Suzuki missed the 2023 WBC due to an oblique injury, but he is healthy and available this time around. Team Japan honored Suzuki during the last tournament, even hanging his jersey in the dugout. When they won, the team brought his jersey onto the field so he could be part of the celebration. Samurai Japan hung Seiya Suzuki and Ryoji Kuribayashi jerseys in their dugout in honor of their injured teammates. Coincidently, both Hiroshima Carp. pic.twitter.com/UtKt7R1brt - Yakyu Cosmopolitan (@yakyucosmo) March 17, 2023
There are few sports as evocatively named as the snowboard event known as Big Air. It's big. It's in the air. High, high in the air. On Saturday, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Kira Kimura of Japan won the men's Big Air competition at the Livigno Snow Park in Valtellina, Italy. His best run was his third, a switch backside 1980 weddle five and a half full horizontal rotations.
The period between the 2022 Olympics and the 2026 Olympics might have been some of the best years yet for the Japanese women's hockey team. In 2022, the team secured a fifth-place finish at the IIHF Women's World Championship. Three years later, Japan would win gold at both the Asian Winter Games and the IIHF Asian Championship. And just recently, the Japanese women's hockey team won gold at the second edition of the IIHF Asian Championship.
One of the great joys of being an Olympian is arriving at the athletes' village and, with it, the shift in your identity from just being a skeleton athlete to being a part of Team GB. There is a real belonging in putting on the T-shirt or jacket with your country's flag on, and of course with the Olympic rings a symbol of hope and peace and togetherness.
Dual moguls is new to the Olympics this year. It's head-to-head heats, with skiers facing moguls, gates, and jumps-and being judged, head-to-head, on each element for a combined score. In the men's medal rounds today, Japan's Ikuma Horishima (pictured above, sort of) had a disastrous run in his round-of-16 showdown, and somehow ended up facing the wrong way. That's an odd and very specific sort of adversity to overcome, but he did it.