Nobunari ODA (JPN)

“10 years from now, I’ll be coaching. Right now, I don’t really have a set plan on how to get there, but I’m so grateful for all Canada has done for me. I want to learn all I can about coaching from Canada and from other countries abroad. I don’t just want to study singles coaching but also other disciplines like pairs. Now that there’s a team competition in the Olympics, pairs and ice dance are also important. I don’t know much about ice dance since it’s so different from singles whereas pairs shares common features with singles. I wonder which one would be better to learn.

From my experience, there’s all sorts of coaching techniques out there. I want to bring some of it back to Japan. It would be great to one day pass down what I learned to others. Of course, as a coach, I want to raise Olympic champions. I want to be a coach whose guidance can create Olympic champions from my hometown of Osaka. Again, this plan is still a work-in-progress.”

What will skating be like 10 years from now?

“It will probably be more exciting than it is now! The media will definitely be busy. They’ll be running around all over the place doing interviews left and right. The up-and-comers are amazing! I can’t help but see skating in the future being as bright as ever. 10 years from now, there’s no way skating won’t be even more exciting.”