State of Japanese Skaters 2014-2015

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20150617-00000159-jij-spo Kinoshita Club has announced today two new teams; dance & pair as follows:

Dance: Kana Muramoto/Chris Reed
Pair: Miu Suzaki/Ryuichi Kihara

Kana with the former partner Hiroichi Noguchi at Tallinn Trophy 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXmshLZ7QlQ
Kana as a single skater at Challenge Cup 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs3XnaW97eo

Good luck to all four!

deedee1 said:

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20150617-00000159-jij-spo Kinoshita Club has announced today two new teams; dance & pair as follows:

Dance: Kana Muramoto/Chris Reed
Pair: Miu Suzaki/Ryuichi Kihara

Kana with the former partner Hiroichi Noguchi at Tallinn Trophy 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXmshLZ7QlQ
Kana as a single skater at Challenge Cup 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs3XnaW97eo

Good luck to all four!

Click to expand...

You beat me to it, deedee1! Do you know what happened to Kana's former partner? Did he retire?

Sai Bon, I have no idea tbh... his Wiki (only in Japanese) https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/野口博一 indicates nothing on the split.. Doesn't even say whether Hiro retired or not.

IIRC, Kana/Hiro was named to the national team for Universiade 2015 by placing 3rd at J-Nats (after Reed/Reed, Emi/Marien), then they withdrew and announced their sudden split, with no specific reasons mentioned. But if reading Kana's tweet early March https://mobile.twitter.com/kana3ic3mura/status/575019020115554304?p=p, we can speculate it was Hiro's wish or request, not Kana's at all. She was confused about his sudden decision and still in shock, she says.