The Woman Who Won Chess on Ice: Nana Takagi's Two Golds in Pyeongchang
Makubetsu, Hokkaido, sits on the Tokachi Plain, a region where speed skating runs deep. There, on July 2, 1992, a skater was born. Nana Takagi stands just 155 centimeters tall. What this far-from-imposing athlete showed the world was not a contest of leg power, but one of mind and nerve.
At the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, she walked away with two gold medals. One was won through the unity of a team. The other through the calculation of a single skater, alone in a pack. Behind her calm expression burned a competitor hotter than almost anyone around her.
From Makubetsu to the Ice
In Makubetsu, where speed skating is woven into daily life, the ice is never far in winter, and that is the world in which Nana Takagi learned to skate.
At 155 centimeters, she is hardly built for a power sport. But she sharpened a way of competing that suited her. Rather than meeting opponents in a head-on test of strength, she won on spacing, on patience, on the judgment of a single decisive moment. That style would, in time, blossom on the world stage.
Gold in the Team Pursuit
The first medal she claimed in Pyeongchang was gold in the team pursuit, an event you cannot win on individual speed alone. Several skaters form a flawless line, sharing the air resistance, breathing as one as they sweep around the oval.
Only when every member's rhythm locks together can a team reach the top. Takagi served as a linchpin, meshing her timing perfectly with her teammates. A gold won not by the individual but by the whole, it was the first half of her double crown.
Mass Start: The First Champion
Then came the other. In the mass start, a new event introduced at the 2018 Games, she seized the title of the very first Olympic champion.
In the mass start, skaters launch together and the winner emerges from sustained tactical maneuvering. You read the flow of the pack, conserve energy by sitting back, and then strike all at once at the right instant. It is chess on ice. Takagi read the board coldly and broke away at the very end. She did not overpower; she outthought. It was the most vivid display of what makes her special.
The Unfathomable Takagi Household
You cannot talk about Nana Takagi without mentioning her sister, Miho, herself one of the biggest stars in speed skating. Two top athletes from one family. That alone hints at how deep the Takagi household runs.
But the elder sister carries a different weapon than the younger. Where speed defines Miho, Nana decides races through tactics and tenacity, a distinct identity all her own. Two people sharing the same dinner table, each reaching the summit by a different route. The fact of it is remarkable in itself.
Two golds in Pyeongchang, and the Medal with Purple Ribbon. Behind that placid face, you suspect, lives a fierce, white-hot will to win, so striking was her composure under pressure.
By mind rather than muscle, by timing rather than the individual, the woman who won chess on ice quietly but firmly proved that size and flash are not everything. She is the kind of athlete who makes you want to say: well done.