Japan's three-time figure skating Olympian Chris Reed has died after suffering a heart attack, aged 30. https://t.co/UIxQFiB7wS
— Olympic Channel (@olympicchannel) March 17, 2020
We remember his performance at PyeongChang 2018 with ice dance partner Kana Muramoto. pic.twitter.com/d8mK3FY4HL
It has been recently reported, first by his family and then by various media outlets, that longtime and recently retired Japanese ice dancer Chris Reed died at age 30 of a sudden heart attack.
The middle child of three ice dancing siblings born and raised in the United States, but with Japanese citizenship as well via their mother Noriko, Chris formed a partnership with his older sister Cathy, initially for the United States. But after winning the US national novice title in 2006, Cathy & Chris decided to switch to compete for Japan, a country where ice dance is a marginal figure skating discipline and they immediately became national senior silver medalists on arrival, before winning seven national titles and representing Japan at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, placing seventeenth and twenty-first, respectively. Cathy & Chris never found much success in the way of medals internationally, but were well-liked by their peers and fans. Cathy opted for retirement after the 2014/15 season and began working as a coach and choreographer in Japan.
Chris' career wasn't done just yet, however, and he would find his greatest successes with his new partner Kana Muramoto over their three seasons together. Muramoto/Reed won several international medals on the ISU Challenger circuit and, in 2018, became the first ever Japanese dance team to medal at an ISU championship when they won the bronze at the Four Continents Championships in Taipei. They were fifteenth at the 2018 Winter Olympics and eleventh at the 2018 World Championships, both career-bests for Chris, before Kana decided to end the partnership.
In his most recent blog post, Chris indicated that he was planning to return to Japan to join Cathy in founding the new Kinoshita Ice Dance School, to, in his words, "take Japanese ice dance to a new age". He is survived by his parents, Noriko and Robert, sisters Cathy and Allison, and longtime girlfriend Kerstin Frank.
Olympic Channel Twitter
Reed blog
Allison Reed Instagram
Kerstin Frank Instagram
Reed/Reed 2010 WC OD (Japanese folk dance)
Reed/Reed 2011 WC SD (Addams Family)
Reed/Reed 2013 NHK FD (Shogun)
Muramoto/Reed 2018 4CC SD (Latin)
Muramoto/Reed 2018 4CC FD (Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence)
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