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⛸️ SPORTS · Japan explained · 2026-08-21

Why Japan loves figure skating: triple axels, Olympic gold and teddy bears on the ice

Same news, rewritten for 6 Japanese school grades — pick your level below. Furigana + translation included.
146 chars · ~3 min · 25 kanji
⛸️ SPORTS 世界 せかい
Same sentence · 6 levels

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日本にほんは フィギュアスケートで 世界せかいでも 有名ゆうめいな 国くにです。

氷こおりの 上うえで 三回転さんかいてんや 四回転よんかいてんを 決きめます。

小ちいさい ころから 毎日まいにち 練習れんしゅうを 始はじめます。

大おおきな 大会たいかいは テレビで 放送ほうそうされ、多おおくの 人ひとが 見みます。

二千六年にせんろくねんに 日本にほんの 女子じょしが 金きんメダルを 取とりました。

客きゃくは 氷こおりの 上うえに ぬいぐるみを 投なげます。

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Translation

Japan is a country famous around the world for figure skating.

On the ice, skaters land clean triple and quadruple rotations.

From a young age, children begin practising every day.

Big competitions are broadcast on television and a great many people watch.

In 2006, a Japanese woman won a gold medal.

Spectators throw stuffed toys onto the ice.

Why is figure skating so popular in Japan?

Figure skating is one of the sports Japan watches most closely. A big competition can fill an arena, take over prime-time television and turn a three-minute programme into the thing everyone talks about the next morning — which is unusual for a winter sport in a country where most people never see snow at home.

The reason is a chain of firsts. In 1988, at the NHK Trophy, Midori Ito became the first woman to land a triple axel in competition; a year later she became the first World champion from outside Europe and North America. In 2006 in Turin, Shizuka Arakawa won Japan's first Olympic gold in figure skating. Then Yuzuru Hanyu took the men's title at Sochi 2014 and again at Pyeongchang 2018 — the first man to win two Olympic titles in a row in 66 years. Each win sent another wave of children to the rink.

The sport itself rewards two things at once: the physical difficulty of a quadruple jump, and the way a skater carries the music. Judges score both. Japan also hosts the NHK Trophy every autumn as its leg of the ISU Grand Prix, and fans there have their own ritual — after a skate, wrapped flowers and stuffed toys rain onto the ice.

This article comes in six versions, one for each Kyōiku kanji grade from 1 to 6, with furigana readings and full Vietnamese and English translations, so you can read the same story at whatever level you have reached.

Who was the first woman to land a triple axel in competition?

Midori Ito of Japan, at the 1988 NHK Trophy. The triple axel is the hardest of the triple jumps because it takes off facing forward, which adds an extra half-rotation in the air. Ito went on to win the 1989 World Championships, becoming the first world champion in figure skating from outside Europe and North America.

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Why six school grades, and not N5–N1?

Because that is how Japanese children learn to read. Japan's Ministry of Education fixes exactly which character belongs to which grade — so "grade 3" is a boundary you can verify, not a feeling. Every article here is machine-checked: if a single character sits above its grade, it is not published.

The result: you never hit a character you have not learned. That is the whole reason this product exists.

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