Kaori Sakamoto won bronze in the women’s singles at the Beijing Olympic Winter Games, ending a twelve-year wait for Japan. She became the first Japanese woman to claim an Olympic singles medal since Mao Asada took silver at Vancouver 2010.
A podium decided on the final night
Sakamoto stood second after the short program with a score of 79.84. She entered the free skate at Capital Indoor Stadium on 17 February 2022 knowing the two ROC skaters ahead of her possessed quads she did not.
She delivered a clean free skate worth 153.29 points while the event unravelled around her. The pre-event favourite, Kamila Valieva, fell multiple times and dropped out of the medals on a night overshadowed by a doping case.
Anna Shcherbakova landed both her quads to take gold on 255.95 points, and Alexandra Trusova landed five quads for silver on 251.73. Sakamoto’s total of 233.13 — a career best at the time — held firm for the bronze.
Twelve years later, Japan returns to the podium
She helped Japan to a team event bronze days earlier, a result later upgraded to silver. But this individual medal was the breakthrough on sport’s biggest stage, and it arrived without the high-risk jumps her rivals deployed.
“I don’t have the big jumps as others would have, which is a big handicap,” she told reporters. “That means I had to have perfect elements.”
The bronze started a quiet run of dominance. A month later she won her first world title, then defended it in Saitama, made it three straight in Montreal, and closed her career with a fourth world crown in 2026. She would add an Olympic silver in Milano Cortina four years later, but Beijing was where the path opened.
