Figure skating: 3-time world champ Sakamoto to retire after Olympics
The 25-year-old, who claimed women's singles bronze at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, finished second at the world championships in Boston in March.
Sakamoto revealed her plan at the opening ceremony for a new skating rink in her home city of Kobe in western Japan.
"I feel like I have less than a year left," she said. "I'll be 29 at the following Olympics (in 2030), which is out of the question. I'll try to bring things to a close the year I turn 26."
Sakamoto made her Olympic debut at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. She won her fourth straight Japanese championship, and fifth overall, last December.
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Chinese 12-year-old Yu Zidi has won a bronze medal at the swim world championships, an astounding feat for a girl who would be a sixth- or seventh-grade student depending on the school system. Yu earned the medal by swimming in the prelims of China's 4x200-meter freestyle relay team. She did not swim in the final on Thursday — China placed third behind winning Australia and the United States — but gets a bronze medal as a team member. She's been close to winning an individual medal, placing fourth in both the 200 butterfly and the 200 individual medley. She still has the 400 IM to swim. Brent Nowicki, the executive director of World Aquatics, said the governing body would look at its age-limit rules. The limit is now 14, but athletes can reach the worlds if they surpass a tough time standard. 'I didn't think I'd have this conversation, but now I think we have to go back and say is this appropriate?' he said this week in Singapore. 'Is this really the right way to go forward and do we need to do other things? Put other guardrails up? Do we allow it under certain conditions? I don't know the answer.' He called Yu 'great.' He also said officials had to be 'careful' about the age issue. __ AP sports: © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
