Widely beloved for the sheer joy and quality of their skating, Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara have been having an incredible season. Undefeated this season, they became the first Japanese pair to win the Grand Prix Final earlier this season and this coming week they will challenge for their first world title at home in Japan. Following their recent victory at the 2023 Four Continents Championships, they shared with us their thoughts regarding their growth and strengths as a team, the current field, and future plans.
Special thank you to Mei (@_kaosquared_ on Twitter) for Japanese transcription and translation, Becs (@becsfer on Twitter) for proofreading, editing and revision. Photos by Kat (@kattwts).
Riku and Ryuichi with their coach, Bruno Marcotte in the kiss & cry.
How are you feeling now that you’ve had one day after winning? Has it sunk in, how do you feel today about everything?
Ryuichi: We are very happy because we got the gold medal. We’re really happy to have won as the first Japanese pair, but it wasn’t a great performance, so right now we have more of a sense of disappointment, and awareness that we can’t continue like this.
I was wondering, the pairs field has changed significantly since the last season, no Russian teams and the Chinese pairs have taken a break this season. How does that impact your motivation going forward into this season and into the future?
Riku: Yes, it’s a bit sad that we can’t compete against the powerhouses, but more than that I’m really happy that we’re able to compete with skaters from so many countries.
Ryuichi: Well we’re always competing with ourselves, rather than against countries, it’s always been a fight against ourselves, so, I think it’s okay.
You were already a good team when you started and you have continued to grow, how do you see the development of your team?
Ryuichi: Because I always respect my partner and coach.
Riku: Good partner, good coach, good teammate.
Ryuichi: We always trust our coaches, and our coaches trust us, they respect us. We always respect each other and every day we’ve set a goal for ourselves for the day and we always achieve it. I think as a result of that we’ve always been able to step up.
What do you think your greatest strength is as a team? Your coach told us that it was speed. Do you agree?
Ryuichi/Riku: Yes.
Ryuichi: Because we love speed, so if we don’t have speed, twists are scary.
Riku: Yeah.
Ryuichi: We really love speed, so actually, I think if we didn’t have speed we’d be too scared to do our elements. Our skating type is very similar, so it’s not forced, it’s natural, so we can get speed easily.
Yes, yes, and then it makes the elements look very spectacular!
Ryuichi: Yes, so our speed is very natural, so we didn’t struggle with elements, because we had the speed, so [the] timing is perfect every time.
In terms of your plans going forward for training, are you working more towards perfecting the elements that you have, kind of increasing the quality of them, or are you going to maybe move forward in terms of the difficulty of the elements?
Riku: I want to try quad throw in the future.
Ryuichi: Of course we want to try new elements. We want to learn new elements, but for now heading into Worlds we want to improve our quality and reduce our mistakes.
Your relationship is very strong with a lot of respect, and you both had other partners, but talk about how your relationship helps you on the ice and working together?
Ryuichi: Because we are Japanese but we are living in Canada, we couldn’t go back to Japan during COVID two years ago. It was a really hard time because we couldn’t go outside, we had to stay in the house, or the rink, so we couldn’t see our family, or friends but we supported each other every day, of course our coach helped us but our relationship is very strong. COVID wasn’t good for the world, but it was good for our relationship.
What would it take to increase the number of pairs that are training in Japan or to grow interest in pairs in Japan?
Ryuichi: So we have to show how pairs is a great sport, so I hope we can do that.
Do you feel pressure in that?
Riku: No.
Ryuichi: I think, because you know, we were not good, we didn’t have good results two to three years ago, but now we can get good results so we are really enjoying it.
What do you think will be the key to improving as a pairs team?
Ryuichi: Firstly, we have to learn English. So, because we can understand our coaches, we are understanding better now, but we want to understand some more. Secondly, technique. We have to grow, we have to improve our quality further. Finally, difficult elements. For example quad twist, or I think throw, I don’t want to catch quad twist, sorry. (laughs) I’m scared, so.
Do you think you would like to become coaches some day in Japan?
Ryuichi: We want to try but we have to learn more pairs elements. I would like to try, but there’s still a lot I need to learn to coach pairs, so I’d like to learn more under Coach Bruno.
Riku, you have spoken a lot about how you admire the Chinese pair Sui Wenjing/Han Cong. I was wondering what about them you love so much, and what’s your favorite program by them?
Riku: 2019 Worlds, free program I love [laughs].
What do you love about the pair? What do you see in that pair that you want to bring to your skating?
Riku: I love their throw jumps right on the accent of the music, I just really love how they perform.
I’m curious now that you’ve got Worlds next, and then the off season, is there anything you plan to do to relax and let loose. What do you like to do in your free time?
Riku: I want to go sightseeing.
Where?
Riku: It’s a difficult question. …I wonder where. I want to go to ‘Hawaii because I’ve never been!
You (Ryuichi)?
Ryuichi: I want to watch Japanese baseball, I think Bruno will come to Japan so we have to go. We must go.
He’s a baseball fan, isn’t he?
Ryuichi: Yeah we love baseball. Riku likes the (Riku: Blue Jays!) Toronto Blue Jays now. So she wants to get a new uniform this year.
Riku wants to buy the uniform?
Riku: I want to buy one.
With your programs, you have a unique style that’s typical of you. What kind of style would you like to explore in the future? You have more of a romantic, lyrical style, but do you want to explore something new?
Riku: We’re still on our 4th season, so I think we can explore a lot more pieces of music, so with that, I’d like to find a new side of us.
Ryuichi: Right now our choreographer always decides the style of music, Julie Marcotte, she always chooses the theme, so. I think we’ll be creating our programs together again this year.
Riku and Ryuichi’s signature medal pose!
Translated Japanese responses are marked by italics throughout the interview. Translation by Mei (@_kaosquared_).