April 21, 2026
TOKYO – Figure skating pair Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who won gold at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, announced Friday their intention to retire from competitive skating.
The duo posted a joint message on social media reading: “We are filled with a sense of accomplishment and have no regrets. We’re proud of the experiences we’ve had and we treasure them all.”
Miura, 24, from Hyogo Prefecture, and Kihara, 33, from Aichi Prefecture, came together as a pair in 2019, and are affectionately called “Riku-Ryu.”
The pair placed seventh in their Olympic debut in 2022 in Beijing, then became the first Japanese pair to win the World Championships in 2023 and reclaimed the title in 2025.
At the 2026 Olympics in February, the pair got off to a slow start, taking fifth place in the short program, but staged a comeback later by delivering a synchronized performance in the following free skating portion of the event to win Japan’s first-ever gold medal in pair skating with a score of 158.13 points, a record for the program.
The two said after the Olympics that they “[hadn’t] yet thought about what to do next” but hoped to pursue coaching careers in the future. The pair did not compete in the World Championships held in March in Prague, where they could have defended their title.