Chinami Yoshida (吉田 知那美, Yoshida Chinami, born 26 July 1991) is a *anese curler. She currently plays third for Team Loco Solare, which is skipped by Satsuki Fujisawa. The team won the bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and the silver medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Contents

• 1 Career
• 2 Personal life
• 3 Teams
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Career

Yoshida began curling at age 7, at the Tokoro Curling Club in Kitami. During her junior days, she skipped a Kitami-based junior rink of Kaho Onodera, Yumi Suzuki and her sister Yurika Yoshida. They became a sensation by winning two straight bronze medals at the *an Curling Championships when they were only in their early teens. However, on the national junior scene, the Yoshida rink was usually lagging behind other *anese junior rinks such as Satsuki Fujisawa and Sayaka Yoshimura, and therefore never earned the right to represent *an at the Pacific Junior Curling Championships or the World Junior Curling Championships.

After her junior career, Yoshida joined Ayumi Ogasawara's Sapporo-based rink in late 2010, for which she mainly played lead. At the 2014 Winter Olympics, where they represented *an and finished fifth with a 4–5 record, Yoshida was officially listed as the alternate for Team *an, but actually played second in 6 games and as lead in 2 games due to her teammate's flu.

After the 2013–14 season, Yoshida left the Ogasawara rink and returned to her hometown of Kitami. There, in June 2014, she joined Mari Motohashi's rink as third, reuniting with her former teammates Yumi Suzuki and Yurika Yoshida, both of whom had played for the Motohashi rink since 2010. With the team, Yoshida won her first World Curling Tour *le at the 2014 Avonair Cash Spiel. Later in the 2014–15 season, at the national championships, they lost the final against the Ogasawara rink to miss a berth to the world championships.

In May 2015, the Motohashi rink added Satsuki Fujisawa, who was a four-time *anese champion skip at that point. Motohashi thereafter moved from skip to alternate because of her pregnancy, and Fujisawa took over the rink of third Chinami Yoshida, second Yumi Suzuki and lead Yurika Yoshida. During the 2015–16 season, they had success internationally as *an's national team, winning a gold at the 2015 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships and a silver at the 2016 World Women's Curling Championship, which was *an's first-ever world championship medal. Meanwhile, domestically, Yoshida with the team won her first national championship *le at the 2016 *an Curling Championships. The team would win a bronze medal at the 2016 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships and a silver at the 2017 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships. They also won a bronze medal at the 2017 Asian Winter Games.

The rink would win the 2017 *anese Olympic Curling Trials, and would represent *an at the 2018 Olympics winning a bronze medal in the process.

Yoshida skipped the Fujisawa rink at the 2018 Humpty's Champions Cup with Fujisawa away playing in the 2018 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. The team finished winless during the event, going 0–4 in the round robin.

Yoshida again represented *an at the 2018 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships. Her team went an undefeated 6–0 record in the round robin, but lost to the Koreans (skipped by Kim Min-ji) in the final. The next month, she represented *an in the second leg of the 2018–19 Curling World Cup in Omaha, United States, which her team would end up winning, this time defeating Kim and her South Korean rink in the final.

Team Fujisawa began the 2019–20 season, at the 2019 Hokkaido Bank Curling Cl*ic where they lost in the final to Jiang Yilun. Next they won the ADVICS Cup. They had two more playoff appearances at their next two events, the Booster Juice Shoot-Out and the 2019 Colonial Square Ladies Cl*ic where they had semifinal and quarterfinal finishes respectively. Next, they had a semifinal finish at the 2019 Curlers Corner Autumn Gold Curling Cl*ic. In Grand Slam play, they made the quarterfinals at the Masters and the semifinals of the Tour Challenge, National and Canadian Open. They had two more playoff appearances on tour at the Red Deer Curling Cl*ic where they lost in the quarterfinals and the Karuizawa International where they lost the final to Anna Sidorova. For the first time in four seasons, Team Fujisawa won the *an Curling Championships, defeating Seina Nakajima in the final. The team was set to represent *an at the 2020 World Women's Curling Championship before the event got cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The *anese Championship would be their last event of the season as both the Players' Championship and the Champions Cup Grand Slam events were also cancelled due to the pandemic.

Team Fujisawa played in no World Curling Tour events during the abbreviated 2020–21 season as there were no events held in *an or Asia. The team would compete in their national championship, held from February 7–14, 2021 in Wakkanai, Hokkaido, as the defending champions. After an unblemished 6–0 round robin record, the team defeated Team Sayaka Yoshimura of Hokkaido Bank to advance to the final where they would once again face Yoshimura. Down one in the tenth, Team Yoshimura scored two points to win the national championship 7–6 over Team Fujisawa. This meant that once again, the team would not get to represent *an at the World Championships. Team Fujisawa ended their season at the 2021 Champions Cup and 2021 Players' Championship Grand Slam events, which were played in a "curling bubble" in Calgary, Alberta, with no spectators, to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. The team had quarterfinal finishes at both events, losing out to Rachel Homan at the Champions Cup and Anna H*elborg at the Players'.

Personal life

Yoshida is employed as an office worker for a car dealing company in Kitami City that is one of her curling team's sponsors. Her younger sister Yurika Yoshida is her long time teammate from their junior curling days, and her older sister Natsuki is a curler who has competed in the PJCC and the WJCC before.

Teams

References

External links

• Chinami Yoshida at World Curling Federation
• Chinami Yoshida at Olympics.com
• Chinami Yoshida at Olympedia