Nakai began figure skating in 2013. She originally practiced
rhythmic gymnastics but ultimately switched to figure skating after being inspired by watching
Mao Asada perform on TV when she was five years old. As an advanced novice skater, Nakai finished fifth at the
2019–20 Japan Novice Championships. The following year, she won bronze at the
2020–21 Japan Novice Championships and with this result, was invited to compete at the
2020–21 Japan Junior Championships where she placed sixth. In doing so, she worked with local choreographer,
Kenji Miyamoto. Making her
2025–26 Grand Prix circuit, Nakai won the gold medal at the
2025 Grand Prix de France, earning new personal best scores in the short program, free skate and total score and defeating three-time World champion
Kaori Sakamoto. The following month, Nakai won the silver medal at the
2026 Four Continents Championships in her debut at this event. "I was disappointed that I fell on the triple Axel," said Nakai, "but I managed to finish my program pretty well. Throughout the season, I carried momentum and I was able to perform on this condition. That’s something I was excited about. And I’m very excited that I was able to get a medal at my first Four Continents Championships." On 17 February, Nakai competed in the short program of the
2026 Winter Olympics, as the event's youngest competitor. She won that segment and earned a personal best after delivering a clean skate that included a
triple Axel. In doing so, she became the sixth women's singles skater to land a triple Axel at a Winter Olympic Games. "Honestly, I'm surprised, and I'm very happy now that I was able to perform like this on this stage," she said following her performance. "I didn't feel scared at all, and I wasn't as nervous as I expected. I was really excited about it. I was the first to skate, so I was able to carry this feeling from the six-minute warm-up into properly challenging this performance. I think that really helped." Two days later, Nakai competed in the free skate segment. Although she opened with a clean triple Axel, she doubled the second part of her planned triple-triple combination, and two of her other triples were deemed to have been landed on the quarter. Due to many of the women delivering very strong free programs that night, Nakai only placed ninth in that segment despite receiving a high score of 140.45. However due to her first-place finish in the short program, Nakai managed to win the bronze medal overall. "When the scores came out, I couldn't tell where my ranking was," she said in an interview after her free skate. "I was searching for it. I thought I didn't make it. When I looked next to my name, it had 3 next to it. That's when I finally realized it meant a bronze medal. I was really surprised, and honestly, I even wondered if it was real... I had never seen my
coach cry before, so seeing him genuinely happy and celebrating with a medal like this made me really happy. My coach told me 'thank you.' Even before the short program, he had said, 'Thank you for bringing me to this stage.' So being able to win this medal together like this makes me really happy... I honestly didn't even think I would be able to compete at the Olympics. The fact that I'm now standing here, wearing a medal, makes me incredibly happy. It makes me feel that all the injuries and everything I went through along the way were not in vain." Nakai's tearful, excited reaction to winning the Olympic bronze medal went viral online, which included gold medalist,
Alysa Liu, rushing over to Nakai and joyfully embracing her and hoisting Nakai up off the ground. In March, Nakai made her World senior debut at the
2026 World Championships in
Prague where she finished in ninth place overall after placing eighth in both the short program and the free skate. "It was a really long season," she said. "Mentally it was really tough as well, but now that it’s over. I really feel like I’ve worked hard through it." == Programs ==