WINTER NOTE | A small column about winter sports and the people who live them.
On a quiet night in Kelowna, Japan secured its eighth straight Olympic berth
When the announcement “Japan have qualified for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games” echoed through the arena in Kelowna, Canada, there were no wild jumps or ear-splitting screams. Skip Sayaka Yoshimura simply held her breath for a beat and smiled softly. That alone was enough to make my chest tighten.
The Japanese women’s curling national team, Fortius (Team Yoshimura), defeated Norway 6–5 at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games Qualification Event 2025 and clinched their spot. With that, Japan’s women’s curling team will appear at the Olympics for the eighth consecutive time, starting from Nagano 1998.
What it means to lose one day and beat the same opponent the next
Fortius finished the round robin with 6 wins and 1 loss, in second place. Their only defeat came in the final game of the round robin, again against Norway — a 10–9 come-from-behind loss. A bitter way to lose, followed immediately by a playoff rematch the very next day.
The playoff ended 6–5. Japan conceded a single point in the first end, then Skip Yoshimura made her draw in the second end to take two back. Norway responded with two in the third, threatening to tilt the momentum their way, but a single point in the fourth and a steal in the fifth pulled it back to Japan. In the closing ends, each side traded single points. In the tenth end, Norway’s last stone came up just short, and Japan didn’t even need to throw their final rock.
“Losing to a team one day and beating them the next” sounds simple when written out, but in the suffocating pressure of an Olympic Qualification Event, it is anything but. That’s precisely why that quiet smile lingers so vividly in my mind.
From round robin to playoff: what felt “typically Fortius”
Six wins and one loss over seven round-robin games. Even the shot-making percentages tell the story: add up the four positions and they rank among the very best. Rather than spectacular “super shots,” they slowly pull ahead through sheer precision. Watching Fortius, you get the sense that they’re a condensed version of everything Japan’s women’s curling has built in terms of technique and reading the ice.
Skip Yoshimura draws the full picture of the sheet, while third Kaho Onodera shares that image and helps search for the best shot options. Second Yuna Kotani and lead Anna Omiya finely adjust the speed and curl of the stones with their sweeping, all the while keeping the team atmosphere bright even from far up in the stands.
Alternate Mina Kobayashi also plays a big role in softening the mood on the bench. Veterans and younger players wearing the same jersey — that balance might be what gives Fortius their distinct feel.
The story behind the number “eight straight Olympics”
Team Nagano at the Nagano Games, Team Aomori at Torino and Vancouver, Loco Solare at PyeongChang and Beijing, and now Fortius at Milano–Cortina. Japan’s history in women’s Olympic curling has continued unbroken, even as team names and line-ups have changed.
“Eight consecutive appearances” may sound like just a number, but behind it are teams that lost out in qualifying, and teams that disbanded when sponsors walked away. The 6–5 win in Kelowna sits on top of all those accumulated stories.
On the men’s side, Team Yamaguchi kept their chances of reaching the playoffs alive until the very end, but fell just short. Including that heartbreak, it feels clear now that curling has become a sport where “Japan is always there at the Olympic Qualification Event.”
WINTER NOTE link collection
To close, here are a few official posts worth bookmarking if you want to relive Fortius’s run at the event.
World Curling official X: announcing Japan’s Olympic berth
Fortius official X: a live timeline of the team’s journey
YouTube: Sayaka Yoshimura interview
From Kelowna to Milano: the story of Fortius has at least one more chapter left to be written.
