Miraculous! from a Serious Injury to Her First Gp Series Win! Women’s Figure Skater Rinka Watanabe’s Cinderella Story

The biggest star of this season’s Japanese figure skating world. This is how the people concerned describe 20-year-old Rinka Watanabe (TOKIO Inkarami, Hosei Univ.).

In the 2021-22 season, he was almost unknown, finishing 10th in the World Junior Championships, but from the 2022-23 season, he has been a full-fledged member of the senior ranks. She won her first international competition, the Lombardia Trophy last September, defeating Beijing Winter Olympics bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto (Sysmex), and then won the second round of the Grand Prix (GP) series, Skate Canada, in her first appearance as a substitute for an absent skater.

She was nominated for the “Best Newcomer” award at the ISU Skating Awards, the annual awards ceremony of the International Skating Union (ISU), and in June, she was selected to perform in “One Piece on Ice,” an ice show featuring famous skaters such as Masama Uno (Toyota Motor Corporation). She is truly a Cinderella story.

On the other hand, Watanabe herself has been criticized for her speedy rise in the ranks, saying, “I’ve been promoted too fast. I was a new employee and now I am a department manager.” She was also perplexed that her feelings had not caught up with the rapid changes in her position. At the World Championships in Saitama Super Arena in March this year, his triple axel (triple-axel jump), his most popular weapon, failed to work in both SP and FS, and he placed 10th. With her bitter experience as food for thought, she is expected to perform as well as her “position” in the coming season, where she has risen to the top.

Her favorite toy is a stuffed giant bug, which she saw at an aquarium when she was in junior high school and “was attracted by the fact that it could live even if it fasted for six years. He has a strong character, holding a stuffed giant Slider in both hands during interviews.

The story of how he came to prominence is also eye-catching. She started skating at the age of three, fascinated by Shizuka Arakawa’s gold medal-winning performance at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, and jumped triple jumps in succession from early on, winning the B class of the All-Japan Novice Championships. However, he then went through a long period of disappointment.

In his second year of junior high school, he suffered from avulsion cartilage in his right knee, and underwent surgery to transplant a hip bone into his knee. It took several months before he was on the ice again. After that, he followed his coach, who was moving his base overseas, to Canada, but he was unable to grow.

He was able to break out of his current situation because of “a decision” he made. He chose to return to Japan from Canada when the spread of the new coronavirus restricted his freedom of travel. After receiving instruction from Coach Mie Hamada at the Kinoshita Skating Academy in Kyoto, she met Coach Kensuke Nakaniwa, whom she still works under today, in April 2021.

She said, “I never had confidence in myself before, but after meeting Mr. Nakaniwa, my attitude toward skating changed. He believes in me more than I do, so I can believe in myself now.”

Watanabe herself also says this.

She had high potential, but was too afraid of failure to show her ability in competitions, but Coach Nakaniwa told her, “If you practice properly, your success rate will increase. You may fail, but it doesn’t mean you will never fail. He was corrosive to dispel the fear of competition.

It was also Coach Nakaniwa who gave him the weapons to compete on the world stage.