Kaori Sakamoto is a figure skating legend.
She’s won the past five Japanese women’s figure skating championships, and she enters the Winter Olympic Games as the favorite to win individual gold.
It will be her last Olympics, as she’s already announced that she will retire following the competition.
If there was any question about her condition coming into the event, she shook off any doubt with her performances in the team event.
In the short program, she defeated reigning world champion Alysa Liu. In the free skate segment, she defeated reigning United States champion Amber Glenn.
Both are seen as major rivals to Sakamoto in the individual women’s competition, and she vanquished both on Olympic ice.
But that hallowed ice can change when the stakes rise in the individual competition, and Sakamoto is aware of that.
More news: The Night the ‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin Fell Back to Earth at the Olympics
More news: Shocking Photo Reveals Alarming Figure Skating Conditions at the Olympics
She was fully confident going into the final figure skating contest of the Olympics, but after watching what happened Friday with the men, her thoughts have changed.
After seeing the massacre of all the favorites for the gold fall, Sakamoto has a new mindset.
“During the team event, watching everyone skate, I felt like there were no ghosts at this Olympics,” she said in a recent interview. “But now I’m honestly pretty scared.”
When she talks about ghosts, it’s not the spooky kind you’re thinking about. She’s talking about the Olympic forces at work, the pressure that can pull even the best competitor down to the depths of frustration.
Sakamoto won’t be the only one scared when the women start with their short programs on Tuesday, as fans and pundits alike are still reeling from a men’s competition that will be talked about for decades to come.
The top trio going into the free skate, Ilia Malinin, Yuma Kagiyama, and Adam Siao Him Fa, all tumbled in their routines that would have won them gold if they stayed on their skates throughout.
The Japanese champion will hope that she can bust the ghosts in Milan and exit the sport she loves with her first gold medal around her neck.
