# Kaori Sakamoto signs off with fourth world title in Prague

On the 2026-03-27 event date, Japan's Kaori Sakamoto won her fourth world title in Prague as she ended her career with a personal-best free skate and total score.

The source portrays a farewell that was both emotional and elite. Sakamoto claimed women's world figure skating gold for the fourth time, and she did it with career-best scores in the free skate and overall total. The report says she earned 158.97 in the free skate and 238.28 overall, which is a strong enough performance to underline that this was not a sentimental award but a genuine competitive victory.

Her routine, skated to Edith Piaf's Je ne regrette rien, fit the moment well. The source says she delivered a flawless program punctuated by seven triple jumps and that she was emotional after finishing. It also says she had announced her retirement and that this was her last performance before stepping away from competition. That makes the title feel more like a closing chapter than a single result.

The field behind her mattered too. Sakamoto's compatriot Mone Chiba took silver, while Belgium's Nina Pinzarrone won bronze and US champion Amber Glenn dropped to sixth. Those placements show the depth of the event and make clear that Sakamoto won against a meaningful international field rather than in a reduced lineup. The source also notes that reigning Olympic and world champion Alysa Liu was absent, which helped define the competitive setting.

Sakamoto's comments reinforce the sense of finality. She said there were no regrets and that she could say goodbye with this performance. That is the emotional center of the story: a skater known for consistency and poise ending her career with a performance that matched the occasion. The article should avoid making more of the retirement than the source supports, but it is fair to say the farewell was intentional and well executed.

For readers, the verified takeaway is straightforward. Kaori Sakamoto won her fourth world title in Prague, finished with career-best marks and closed out her skating career on a high.

The farewell is especially striking because the performance was not just emotionally satisfying but technically strong enough to win another title. That is the rare combination that makes a retirement story feel complete: the athlete leaves not because the standard has dropped, but because the final routine is still world-class. Sakamoto's win in Prague therefore reads as both a competitive result and a closing statement, one that gives her career a finish line defined by control rather than decline.

That is why the result reads as a complete ending. Sakamoto did not merely leave the ice; she left it with another title, a strong score and a farewell that matched her reputation for precision.