Shoma Uno

Shoma Uno (宇野 昌磨) is a Japanese figure skater.

Shoma Uno was born on 17 December 1997, in Nagoya, Japan.

He was born prematurely, weighing only 900 grams and fitting in the palm of his father's hand.

He has a younger brother, Itsuki.

Uno won bronze at the Japan Junior Championships of the 2009–2010 season but did not finish on the podium in either of the next two years.

Uno made his Junior Grand Prix (JGP) debut in the 2011–2012 season, winning a bronze medal at the JGP Tallinn Cup in Estonia after placing 4th at the event in Poland.

At the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics, he won silver in the individual event and gold in the team event.

He finished 10th at the 2012 World Junior Championships.

Uno was invited to skate in the gala at the 2012 World Team Trophy as the silver medalist in Winter Youth Olympics.

Uno finished 6th at his Junior Grand Prix in Slovenia.

At his next JGP event in Germany, he won the silver medal with personal bests in both programs and a total score of 188.48 points.

He finished 7th at the 2013 World Junior Championships.

Uno competed in his third JGP season, winning the bronze medal in Riga, Latvia, and placing 4th in Tallinn, Estonia.

He placed 5th at the 2014 World Junior Championships and won his first international senior competition at the 2014 Gardena Spring Trophy.

Uno began his season by winning his second senior international competition at the 2014 Asian Trophy.

He was assigned to the JGP events in Japan and Croatia.

He placed second in Japan and first in Croatia with new personal best scores and qualified for his first JGP Final.

He won his first junior national title at the 2014–15 Japan Junior Championships.

The following month, he won gold at the JGP Final, placing third in the short program and winning the free skate while setting junior world records for the free skate and combined total.

At the 2014–15 Japan Championships, he placed 3rd in both segments of the competition, winning the silver medal.

At the junior level, Uno is the 2015 World Junior champion, the 2014–15 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, and 2012 Youth Olympic silver medalist.

Uno is the first skater to successfully land a quadruple flip, and the second skater behind Yuzuru Hanyu to land a quadruple loop in an international competition.

In 2023, Uno became the first man from Japan to win back-to-back world titles since 1896.

He is also the historic record-holder for the highest score by a junior in the short program.

Uno made his senior ISU Championship debut at the 2015 Four Continents; he placed second in the short program, fifth in the free skate, and fifth overall, setting personal best scores in all segments.

He ended his season by winning the 2015 World Junior Championships, winning the short program with a junior world record score of 84.87, and placing second in the free skate.

He became the fifth Japanese man to win the junior world title.

As the junior worlds champion, Uno was invited to skate in the gala at the 2015 World Team Trophy.

Uno started his season with a 5th-place finish at the 2015 U.S. Classic, placing 9th in the short program but winning the free skate.

He then went on to win the individual event of the 2015 Japan Open, defeating World champions Javier Fernandez, Brian Joubert and Patrick Chan.

Making his senior Grand Prix debut, Uno won the silver medal at 2015 Skate America after placing fourth in the short program and first in the free program, finishing only 1.52 points behind gold medalist Max Aaron.

Uno then made some training changes, saying, "During Skate America, I felt that I lacked a bit of stamina, so I increased the number of run-throughs in training every day and started to do off-ice stamina training."

He placed first in the short program at the 2015 Trophée Éric Bompard.

Due to the November 2015 Paris attacks, the free skate was cancelled, and the short program standings were deemed the final results.

Uno thus became the winner of the event and qualified for the 2015–16 Grand Prix Final in Barcelona.

He was awarded the bronze medal in Spain behind Yuzuru Hanyu and Fernández.

He is a three-time Olympic medalist (2018 silver, 2022 bronze, 2022 team bronze), a two-time World champion (2022, 2023) and a two-time World silver medalist (2018, 2017), the 2019 Four Continents champion, the 2022–23 Grand Prix Final champion, a fourteen-time Grand Prix medalist (8 gold, 6 silver), the 2017 Asian Winter Games champion, and a six-time Japanese national champion (2016–2019, 2022–2023).

Since 2019 he has been sponsored by Mizuno.

Uno started skating when he was five because of Mao Asada, who talked to him at a skating rink.

His figure skating idol is Daisuke Takahashi.