Shoma Uno | Page 92 | Golden Skate

Shoma Uno

Can't agree more! I think it's only when he's gone that we really can understand just how tough and dependable Shoma was as a competitor. He had his ups and downs and growing pains during his competitive career, but I admire how he took them on honestly and was able to find ways to fight back to the top. And when you think about how older skaters usually physically struggle until the end, Shoma was able to gracefully balance his more mature artistry and his physical ability in his final seasons.
My friend and I were discussing the difference between mental toughness in tennis and mental toughness in skating..To practice for weeks and weeks and then when it's your turn, you have 2 minutes and 40 seconds or 4 minutes to produce. I find myself saying "How the heck did he do that over and over and over." Popped the 4F to a double at SkAmer 2021 in the SP, well let's just pull off a 4T-3T knowing he HAD to do it to have a chance at the podium. Definitely a magician.
 
My friend and I were discussing the difference between mental toughness in tennis and mental toughness in skating..
As a tennis fan I also thought about how different they are. Men's tennis have matches that last 6 hours! It's not over until the last point is won, and I once saw my favorite player faced the brink of defeat (one point more won against him and he would have lost) and somehow fought for another whole hour to win the match. And I always am attracted to those who are mentally strong but had their strength downplayed, and people only really appreciate them once they are gone and they realize just how hard it was to stay present at the top and fight back up.

To practice for weeks and weeks and then when it's your turn, you have 2 minutes and 40 seconds or 4 minutes to produce. I find myself saying "How the heck did he do that over and over and over." Popped the 4F to a double at SkAmer 2021 in the SP, well let's just pull off a 4T-3T knowing he HAD to do it to have a chance at the podium. Definitely a magician.
It's just SO tough. Honestly it's why I was so, so impressed by Shoma at his last Olympic season. He knew he needed every single point to claw his way back up after uneven seasons and faltering at the previous 2021 Worlds and WTT. He did that by restoring his 4Lo, getting his 4S under control, and just drilling all of his programs from the very first day of the off-season. I remember Alexei Yagudin watching Shoma practice a day before his Olympic team SP and he was just floored at Shoma's hit rate on those jumps in that practice session. That Skate America was also a nail biter, and I think Shoma's silver there over Nathan's bronze was so well fought. 0,5 points difference!!

When I think about it... jumps definitely comes easier and more naturally to Shoma's competitors than him. But he really gave it his best shot and threw the whole kitchen and the sink during his competitive days. Sometimes I feel sad because while I do miss him, it must have taken so much of his life to stay there, just thinking and working on the jumps. I'm glad that he retired with still a warm feeling for skating and is now enjoying it in his own way. Several of his seniors had complicated feelings about skating and competition when they retired, and I had feared that it would be the same for Shoma.
 
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So different with tennis--each sport with their.own way of having to control one's energy and pacing.
Yep, and Shoma did full seasons up until his last season without resorting to too much absences and missing competitions.

One thing I find a bit similar to the older top players in tennis is during their last seasons, they don't really do much of a warm-up tournament unless necessary (similar to how Shoma stopped doing challengers) and forgo the competitions where they already won (similar to how Shoma started declining 4CC assignments).

But then it makes his last season truly remarkable.... I know he didn't medal at Worlds but that was Shoma's first season ever scoring 100+ for his SP in every single competition, and just. Even on the last legs of his desire to compete, he was still able to do that. Ridiculous.

With tennis, my favorite players are really the gladiatorial ones, the ones who are not just physically but mentally and psychologically so strong to be able to endure the prolonged pressure of each match. But in figure skating... Shoma is just the right balance between head and heart and grit. The innate musicality of his skating, the performance quality he was raised to have, and yet then the clear head that never stops counting and making sure he is pushing his body hard enough to fight.
 
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Watching the men's FS today made me miss Shoma. Nothing against the men competing today
but it was a bit of a splat fest. That said, in between the splats there was some really good programs and skating.
With Shoma we got beautiful artistry and programs along with very good technique and consistency. He was not perfect
but pretty damn close. ❤️ ❤️
Exactly — Shoma would’ve totally won this comp
 
Random and not that skating-related (although there are some skating-related tweets being discussed) but Shoma has a video breaking down his viral tweets with the pro Smash Bros gamers at andmore (Shogun, kept, Paseriman and Omnaoto):



Someone on Twitter puts it best: it's very annoying because Shoma is clearly good at humor and doesn't rely on his fame or public status to carry off that humor, and that's why he's able to really hit some peaks on those Tweets, lol.



“The quiz ranking Shoma Uno’s tweets by number of likes”—
It kind of annoys me in a good way that you can clearly feel the humor isn’t just carried by his fame.
He’s actually legitimately funny, and that’s what stings a little.
But when he started saying things like “Let’s leave it for a day~,” that’s when I just had to admit total defeat.
If someone with his level of fame is still putting that much effort into being entertaining… yeah, of course his posts are going to blow up.
 
Shoma's episode on Tetsuko's Room are scheduled for December 3 broadcast at TV Asahi:



I think Japanese figure skating fans have mentioned this show before where the host have hosted other Japanese top skaters, and this will be Shoma's first time. Both the host (Tetsuko) and him have reputations of being "natural" so a lot of fans have commented with "who knows what's going to happen there 😂 "

Throwback with Emma! LOL Shoma's caption: "Dog: there is no gold medal"

 
Fairy Prince and Princess 🥹



Also Ice Brave Yamanashi 2 was completed today! Shoma's jumps were pretty sharp, he has 3A in Gravity and 4T in Your Last Kiss (both his solos), and for the final show he did 3Aeu3F in the finale... after lifting Marin of course 😌 They said they are working on new lifts between Tokyo and Yamanashi, but Shoma said it's quite scary. Marin said she's bought helmets so she's ready to practice more 😅
 
Ice Brave 2 Shimane was completed! I was a bit worried about this particular stop because they overlapped with GPF, but apparently most of the attendance was from local people and the surrounding area, and most of them has never watched skating and/or ice show live. And since it finished quite early in the afternoon, perfect timing to catch up with GPF after for those who did travel 😄

Video during the preparation part of the show, with some footage of Ice Brave:



Colantotte apparently has its own personal ties to Shimane (Izumo City), they made a corporate hometown tax donation to the city alongside sponsoring Ice Brave 2:

 
Looking good as per usual... he landed 4T3T in the final show following Kazuki Kushida's success with 4T 😄 maybe we'll see a side by side 4T soon at the Ice Brave finale.



Shoma and the other Ice Brave male skaters participated in skating class too before the show, which is something that's quite rare for him. The video is paywalled, but a fan shared her impressions:



The video of Shoma Uno’s skating workshop requires a paid membership to view, but the kids’ Q&A section, his teaching, and the whole 8-minute clip are absolutely packed with highlights ✨
By the way, the first month is free to register.​
I wonder if they’ll release some articles after the show ends too? I’m excited 😆
“Nervousness isn’t a negative thing; it’s a chance to grow.”
“Thinking about how you failed is what leads to success years later.”
“When there’s something you can’t do, don’t panic—practice other parts a lot so you can focus calmly on the parts that make you uneasy.”
Shoma’s way of thinking is something you’d want all kids who are striving toward a goal to hear.​
And then, when the group of upper-level girls was giggling and clustered together, he deliberately showed them his usual dynamic spread-eagle flop fall, like bam, and with a sparkling smile told them, “See? It’s okay to fail!”​
I cannot stop replaying that scene… 😳
 
Shoma was also on Tetsuko's Room, and it was a pretty good episode! It was part of GPF promotion (as both the variety show and GPF are under TV Asahi), but it really touched on Shoma's history as a competitive skater. Apparently the show also had Ice Brave 2 footage, which is interesting because I don't think TV Asahi has any connection with it, so they probably got it from Toyota.

Also they had a lot of close-up shots during the show, and I can't blame them, he looks really good:



Sponichi had 3 articles summarizing the contents (my favorite is when Shoma talked about his mother):


Shoma Uno expresses gratitude to his mother: “She raised me as a figure skater.”
As a boy: “I competed because I didn’t want to get scolded.”

December 3, 2025 – 14:45

Professional figure skater Shoma Uno (27), a two-time Olympic medalist in men’s figure skating, appeared on TV Asahi’s Tetsuko’s Room on the 3rd, where he spoke about his deep gratitude toward his mother.

At age 11, he placed third in his first All-Japan Junior Championships. “Honestly, back then I was competing because I didn’t want my mom to get mad at me… Right after finishing my program, the first thing I’d do was look for her to see, ‘Is she angry?’” he said with a laugh.

“I really wanted my mom to praise me. She’s the one who built my figure skating. Of course I put in the effort too, but more than half of it is thanks to her,” he said gratefully.

When host Tetsuko Kuroyanagi asked, “Is it true your mom was scarier than your coach?” Uno replied, “It actually is,” and continued: “But precisely because she was strict, I think I was able to train that hard and get good even when I was still little. It’s not that I hated it at the time, and even now I’m grateful.”

He added with a wry smile, “I never had a rebellious phase. She was so scary that rebelling wasn’t even an option.”

He shared that his mother previously worked in the beauty field and now runs a café. Although she had no skating or athletic background herself, “Because I was small for my age, I think she wanted me to do a sport where being small wouldn’t put me at a disadvantage, and that’s why she put me in skating.”

He described her daily life back then: “She would take me to and from the rink, always accompany me, always watch my practices—she sacrificed everything else. She’d do the housework, help with my training, then sleep… She’s incredibly powerful, full of energy. Without someone like my mom, a skater who could compete on the world stage like me would never have been possible.”

He said his mother was happy about his Olympic appearances, but at the same time, “She was more worried and nervous than anyone. Because she’d always been so strict with me, maybe she felt guilty thinking that if I didn’t skate well, it was partly her fault. She said she couldn’t watch my competitions.”


Shoma Uno reveals the words from a younger skater that motivated him during a slump: “I was embarrassed… I wanted to be someone cooler.”
[December 3, 2025 – 14:28]

Professional figure skater Shoma Uno (27), a two-time Olympic medalist competing as a pro, appeared on TV Asahi’s Tetsuko no Heya on the 3rd, where he shared how a junior skater’s words pushed him to grow during a period of stagnation.

Uno recalled that the year after winning silver at the PyeongChang Olympics, he struggled with poor results.

“Day after day, no matter how much I trained, things just wouldn’t go well. Even so, I still had to go into competitions, and I ended up making more mistakes than I ever had before, leaving really disappointing results,” he said.

“It was the outcome of practicing so earnestly, so I really didn’t know what to do anymore,” he admitted. But then, “I’d been skating for so long already… so at least at the end, I wanted to skate happily,” and for the next six months he shifted his mindset.

At the World Championships, where he competed alongside Yuma Kagiyama, he said, “My performance wasn’t bad, but Kagiyama-kun placed higher than I did.”

“At first, I wasn’t upset… it felt natural, in a way. He has great ability, and I also felt I had done everything I could.”

But after the competition, he saw an interview where Kagiyama said, “The skater I admire is Shoma Uno.”

“At that moment, I felt a little embarrassed,” Uno recalled.

“I realized that the version of myself who wasn’t feeling frustrated, and the fact that a younger skater who outperformed me still admired me… it made me want to be someone cooler, someone worthy of that admiration,” he said.

“So for the next year, I threw away all those thoughts like ‘what if I fail…’. Instead, I trained with the intention of becoming a skater that my junior could look at and think, ‘He’s so cool.’ And that led to good results.”

Uno said he originally had a personality that feared failure.

“But when I realized that there’s so much to learn from failures, it made things easier. Once I understood that messing up properly is what leads to growth, I actually started feeling like, ‘Go ahead and fail if you need to.’ And after that, I stopped getting nervous,” he shared, reflecting on how much he has matured mentally.


Shoma Uno — The two people who led him to decide to retire:
“Two skaters I could never beat. And that’s exactly why the challenge was fun.”

[December 3, 2025 – 14:15]

Professional figure skater Shoma Uno (27), a two-time Olympic medalist in men’s figure skating, appeared on TV Asahi’s Tetsuko no Heya on the 3rd, where he spoke about the two people whose presence ultimately led him to decide to retire.

He admitted, “I never really thought I had more talent than other people. I just tried to make up for everything by practicing really hard.”

He added that the only reason he could train that much was “because I genuinely wanted to,” and said the people who kept his motivation alive were “Yuzuru Hanyu and America’s Nathan Chen.”

“They were the two skaters I absolutely couldn’t beat. And that’s exactly why challenging them was so much fun,” he recalled.

“But after the Olympics, they both retired, and naturally I became the top skater. From there, for a whole year, I was able to win every competition I entered. But there was this slight sense of loneliness… I had always lived in constant challenge mode, and that thrill, that excitement—it felt a little less than before,” he confessed.

He continued, “Day-to-day training and going into competitions stopped being something I earnestly wanted to do, and became something I had to do. That shift was really tough.” As the sport’s leading figure, enjoyment had gradually been overtaken by a sense of obligation.

He also looked back on the technical side, saying, “Even when I increased my training hours, my level was still dropping bit by bit, and I couldn’t accept that.” It was this feeling, he explained, that solidified his decision to retire.
 
Also, Ice Brave 2 may have its last performance for the year 2025 already, but next week (December 13-14), Shoma will be skating at Prince Ice World Aichi, along with his Ice Brave 2 castmates and PIW skaters Kohei Yoshino, Yoshiki Sato, Tsunehito Karakawa, Yoji Nakano, and Rika Hongo. It's a guest skater spot so he should be doing an individual program, can be Gravity or Your Last Kiss (since he has them as solos at Ice Brave 2), but maybe something else...?



And Shoma will participate at DREAM MATCH APEX LEGENDS 2026 in February 2026, as one of the entertainment personalities related to gaming. It is an APEX LEGENDS (game) event. I have checked and it's after the Olympics, so there's still a chance he'll do something during it 😂



Unexpected things lined up... he's more suited to post-retirement work than I thought he would be.
 
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Looking good as per usual... he landed 4T3T in the final show following Kazuki Kushida's success with 4T 😄 maybe we'll see a side by side 4T soon at the Ice Brave finale.



Shoma and the other Ice Brave male skaters participated in skating class too before the show, which is something that's quite rare for him. The video is paywalled, but a fan shared her impressions:



The video of Shoma Uno’s skating workshop requires a paid membership to view, but the kids’ Q&A section, his teaching, and the whole 8-minute clip are absolutely packed with highlights ✨
By the way, the first month is free to register.​
I wonder if they’ll release some articles after the show ends too? I’m excited 😆
“Nervousness isn’t a negative thing; it’s a chance to grow.”
“Thinking about how you failed is what leads to success years later.”
“When there’s something you can’t do, don’t panic—practice other parts a lot so you can focus calmly on the parts that make you uneasy.”
Shoma’s way of thinking is something you’d want all kids who are striving toward a goal to hear.​
And then, when the group of upper-level girls was giggling and clustered together, he deliberately showed them his usual dynamic spread-eagle flop fall, like bam, and with a sparkling smile told them, “See? It’s okay to fail!”​
I cannot stop replaying that scene… 😳

I think his way of thinking is also something adults would want to hear too. I wonder if in the future any adults who are learning to skate even just recreational would be able to do a class from him? That would be so exciting as well.
 
I think his way of thinking is also something adults would want to hear too. I wonder if in the future any adults who are learning to skate even just recreational would be able to do a class from him? That would be so exciting as well.
We'll see, but even skating classes with children is a new thing for Shoma. So maybe in some years, and then there's also the language barrier unfortunately (he only speaks Japanese). His way of thinking is really fun to follow though!

I wonder what he said into the paper cone? Was it a whispered message?
It was part of a game! Hehe, he answered Nino's question into the paper cone.
 
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