Olympics & Paralympics

Milano Cortina 2026: Kokomo Murase Nabs Gold in Snowboard Big Air, Winning First-Ever Snowboarding Gold for Japanese Woman

#Milano Cortina 2026

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:54 JST, February 10, 2026

MILAN — Kokomo Murase won the women’s snowboard big air on Monday, the fourth day of the Milano Cortina Winter Games, bringing Japan its first-ever Olympic gold in women’s snowboard events.

Now 21, Murase became the youngest Japanese woman to win a Winter Olympic medal at the age of 17 when she secured a bronze medal in the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

She scored 179 points on Monday to win the big air gold, 6.75 points ahead of silver medalist Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand.

The Yomiuri Shimbun
Miho Takagi smiles with her medal after winning the bronze in the women’s 1,000-meter speed skating in Milan on Monday.

Also Monday, Miho Takagi won a bronze medal in the women’s 1,000-meter speed skating at 1 minute 13.95 seconds. Takagi has now medaled at three consecutive Games.

The Milano bronze is also the 31-year-old Takagi’s eighth Olympic medal overall, breaking her own record for the most Olympic medals for a Japanese woman at the Summer or Winter Games.

Ski jumper Ren Nikaido, 24, won bronze in the men’s normal hill individual, scoring a total of 266 points in his first Olympic appearance. Japanese ace Ryoyu Kobayashi was seeking back-to-back golds but ultimately finished eighth.

The Yomiuri Shimbun
Ski jumper Ren Nikaido smiles with his bronze medal after the men’s normal hill individual competition in Predazzo, Italy, on Monday.

Smiling and holding her gold medal, Murase said: “I’ve practiced hard so I could win gold and make snowboarding more popular. I’m so happy to have done it.”

Murase’s catchphrase is “I want perform cool snowboarding,” and she has hoped that even people with no connections to snowboarding would watch the sport.

Although thrilled with her latest achievement, Murase is not done. “Winning a gold medal at the Olympics is not the end,” she said. “I want to keep working to make snowboarding popular so that ‘Kokomo Murase’ will become a byword for snowboarding.”