Olympic pairs figure skating gold medalists Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara retire

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Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara announced their retirement from figure skating on Friday, two months after winning the Olympic gold medal with a record-breaking skate.

Miura and Kihara, known to fans as “RikuRyu,” leave the skating world at their peak after surging from fifth place to first at the Milan Cortina Olympics with a world-record free skate that more than made up for earlier errors.

They became the first Japanese pair to win Olympic gold, a breakthrough in a country whose figure skating passion had until then largely focused on the individual events.

“While our competitive careers are coming to an end, we truly feel that we gave it our all, and have no regrets. We are proud of everything we went through, and feel we gained so much along the way,” they posted on Instagram.

“The two of us will now take on new challenges so that we can bring wider recognition to pair skating in Japan. We hope that we can count on you to follow us on our journey.”

The 24-year-old Miura and 33-year-old Kihara's announcement came on the same day that they met Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako at a spring garden party at the Akasaka Palace’s imperial garden in Tokyo.

Based out of Canada with coach Bruno Marcotte, Miura and Kihara won the world title in 2023 and 2025, and two Olympic team event silver medals for Japan.

The Milan Cortina Olympic free skate was the last competitive performance for Miura and Kihara, who skipped last month's world championships, where Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin won pairs gold for Germany.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports