When Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara of Japan will take the ice for the ISU Grand Prix Final in Nagoya this week, it will be very, very special for them. 

The Japanese duo are true trailblazers for their discipline in their country. They are the first Japanese Pair Skaters to have won the World title (meanwhile even two World titles), the ISU Four Continents Championships, the ISU Grand Prix Final. And it was in Nagoya, where Kihara’s dream once started.

“This is my home town,” he shared. “The Nagoya event will be our first Final in Japan and we are looking forward to it. We never had the chance to compete in a Grand Prix Final in Japan. The last time, in 2021, it was scheduled to take place in Osaka. We qualified for the first time for the Final, but it was cancelled because of the Omicron variant (of the Covid-19 pandemic).”

Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara (JPN) are looking forward to the ISU Grand Prix Final in their home country © ISU 

In the 2017/18 Olympic season, the ISU Grand Prix Final was held in Nagoya as well. At the time Kihara was already a Pair skater. With his first partner Narumi Takahashi he had even competed at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, placing 18^th. Kihira continued his career with Miu Suzaki and again made it to the Olympic Games in 2018. They finished 21^st. The Grand Prix Final was out of question for them.

“When Nagoya hosted the Final during the 2017-18 PyeongChang season, I thought that such an event had nothing to do with me,” Kihara said. “So it is a great pleasure for me to be able to participate with Riku in the Grand Prix Final in my hometown of Nagoya.”

Good things come in threes for Kihara. Riku Miura was his third partner and everything was different with her. Miura had been training with her previous partner Shoya Ichihashi in Canada under coach Bruno Marcotte. When they split up, Marcotte invited Kihara for a tryout and he stayed. The new partnership blossomed quickly. They finished fifth in their ISU Grand Prix debut at NHK Trophy in 2019. But then the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020 and most international competitions were cancelled. Miura/Kihara got to compete again at the ISU World Championships 2021 where they finished a respectable 10^th and secured an Olympic spot. They won the silver medal with the team in the Beijing Games and came 7^th in their individual event. 

Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara (JPN) continue to make history for Japanese pair skating © ISU 

Miura and Kihara attribute their success to their good relationship as a team and to their skating style being similar. “We always respect our coaches and each other,” Kihara said. “We want to take one step at a time every day and improve every day.”

“A good partner, good coach, good training mates”, Miura summed up the recipe for success. 

The two-time ISU World Champions set themselves apart with their speed that makes their elements spectacular. “We love to skate at high speed, it is natural for us,“ Kihara noted.

Thanks to the team’s success, Pair Skating is becoming more popular in Japan and gets more attention. With Yuna Nagaoka & Sumitada Moriguchi a second couple has emerged that qualified a second Olympic spot for the Japanese pairs, which is another historic first. 

“The thought that Japan produced two pair teams is deeply moving to me,” Miura shared.

Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara (JPN) kept their successful Short Program to "Paint It Black" © ISU  

Miura and Kihara hope that this is just the beginning for their discipline. “We need to show the world that Pair Skating is a great sport and hopefully we can achieve that,” Kihara said. “A few years ago we didn’t have good results but now we do and we are enjoying that. I hope that new boys and girls (in Japan) accept the challenge of Pair Skating. When I started Pairs, Japan had very few skaters in that discipline. Now that the number of spots has increased, I think it will inspire the next generation of skaters to try pair skating. That's such a wonderful thing. I really hope that one day we'll get three spots, and we'll have more and more Pair Skaters in the future.”

Miura & Kihara are aiming at another historic feat this season: to become the first Japanese Pair to win an Olympic medal, preferably gold. They are on track: after regaining their World title last March, they won their two Grand Prix events Grand Prix de France and Saatva Skate America to top the list of qualifiers for the Final. 

Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara (JPN) want to take their destiny into their own hands © ISU 

The Japanese Champions kept their popular Short Program to “Paint It Black” and got a new, powerful Free Skating to music from the “Gladiator” soundtrack that is a perfect choice for them as it is powerful and keeps building. 

“What we want to express with this program is not so much the battle aspect of The Gladiator music, but rather the concept that the two of us have been carving out a path in our lives and our destiny,” Kihara pointed out. “The thought that we always have in mind when we skate is that we want to seize control of our own destiny.”

Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara are getting ready to take their destiny into their own hands again this season.