Figure skating world champion Shoma Uno joins esports team VARREL

On May 1st at EVO Japan 2026, VARREL esports announced that two-time Olympic medalist and back-to-back World Figure Skating Champion Shoma Uno has officially joined the roster. He'll compete in Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter 6 professionally. Less than two years after retiring from a 13-year career that included consecutive All-Japan Championship appearances, Uno has made the jump from ice to esports.

The timeline is aggressive. Uno announced his retirement in May 2024, and by March 2026 he was already appearing at VSPO! SHOWDOWN 2026 offline events. Now he's signed to a pro team. That's faster than his quad jumps.

The roster pairing is notable—Tokido, the Tokyo University graduate and fighting game legend known as "the pro gamer from Todai," joined VARREL the same day. One's a sports celebrity pivoting careers, the other's an academic-turned-esports icon. The combination looks deliberate. Uno framed it plainly: "Gaming is my biggest hobby. Now I want to go beyond that and compete seriously for results." World champion to rookie pro—the mental reset happened fast.

VARREL's move makes business sense. Uno brings built-in visibility and media pull, which translates to brand exposure. But esports doesn't care about legacy credentials—only match results. Whether he can hold ground in Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter 6 pro circuits depends on the next few months of performance. Fighting game competitive depth operates nothing like figure skating. Muscle memory and reaction speed training are fundamentally different disciplines.

Still, someone who won world championships in a sport demanding extreme body control likely has the hand-eye coordination and pressure tolerance to compete. Uno's stated goal is "building the world's number one team." The bar is set high. Whether this former world champion can replicate his ice rink success in the esports arena remains to be seen.