Satsuki Fujisawa


Satsuki Fujisawa is a Japanese curler from Kitami, Hokkaido. As a skip, she has won the Japanese national championship six times. Fujisawa skipped the bronze medal-winning Japanese team at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. She is currently the skip of the Loco Solare curling team.

Career

Fujisawa's junior career began with a championship at the 2008 Pacific Junior Curling Championships over China's Sun Yue. This qualified her and her Japanese team for the 2008 World Junior Curling Championships, where they finished 7th with a 3-6 record. Fujisawa defended her Pacific Junior title by winning the 2009 Pacific Junior Curling Championships defeating China's Liu Jinli in the final. At the 2009 World Junior Curling Championships, she skipped Japan to a last place finish and a 2-7 record.
In 2011, Fujisawa played in her first non-junior international event, skipping for Japan at the 2011 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships. She placed 4th in the event, finishing with a 2-6 record. Fujisawa won her first World Curling Tour event in 2012 by winning the 2012 Shamrock Shotgun over the South Korean national team, skipped by Kim Eun-jung. Later that year, she skipped Japan to a silver medal at the 2012 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships. Later in the season, she skipped the Japanese women's team to a 7th-place finish at the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship. In September 2013, Fujisawa and her Karuizawa-based rink, who had won the last three straight national championships, participated in the national trials for the Olympic Qualification Event 2013. They lost the best-of-seven final of the trials to Ayumi Ogasawara's Sapporo-based rink in six games, which eliminated their chances of competing at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
Fujisawa left the team and joined Mari Motohashi's rink as skip in May 2015, moving from Karuizawa back to Kitami, where she had grown up and played junior curling until 2009. Half a year later, Fujisawa and her new team represented Japan at the 2015 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships, where she led Japan to its first gold medal since 2005 by winning the final match against South Korea's Kim Ji-sun. Later that season, Fujisawa with third Chinami Yoshida, second Yumi Suzuki, lead Yurika Yoshida and alternate Mari Motohashi also competed for Japan at the 2016 World Women's Curling Championship in Swift Current, Canada. In the round-robin stage of the event, they finished second with a 9-2 record and advanced to the playoffs. They lost the 1v2 game to Binia Feltscher from Switzerland, and then rebounded with a semifinal win over Russia's Anna Sidorova to earn a berth into the gold medal match. There, Fujisawa's rink was defeated by the Swiss team again but secured silver, which was Japan's first-ever podium finish at a world championship.
Fujisawa skipped the Japanese rink at the 2016 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships. After posting a 6-1 round robin record, tied with China and South Korea, she would lead her team to a defeat against China in the semi-final. This meant that she would not be able to defend her silver medal at the World Championships, as she had to make it to the finals to qualify Japan for the 2017 Worlds.
Fujisawa began the 2017-18 curling season by winning the Hokkaido Bank Curling Classic. The team won the 2017 Japanese Olympic Curling Trials in September 2017, defeating the Chiaki Matsumura rink 3 games to 1 in a best-of-five series. The team then went on to win a silver medal at the 2017 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships. After finishing in third after the double round robin with a record of 6-4, they upset China in the semifinal, before losing to Korea in the final. The next month, she won her second tour event of the season, the 2017 Karuizawa International Curling Championship.
Fujisawa skipped the Japanese team that won the 2018 Olympics women curling bronze medal.
Fujisawa again represented Japan at the 2018 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships. She led her team to 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 Japan 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 Classic 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 Classic where they had semifinal and quarterfinal finishes respectively. Next, they had a semifinal finish at the 2019 Curlers Corner Autumn Gold Curling Classic. 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 Classic 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 Japan Curling Championships, defeating Seina Nakajima in the final. The team was set to represent Japan at the 2020 World Women's Curling Championship before the event got cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Canadian Open 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.

Mixed doubles

After the 2018 Olympics, Fujisawa was awarded a wild-card spot in the 2018 Japan Mixed Doubles Curling Championship with fellow Olympian Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi. Despite having never teamed together and having very little mixed doubles experience overall, Fujisawa and Yamaguchi went undefeated to win the championship and the right to represent Japan at the 2018 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, where they would finish fifth overall.
Fujisawa and Yamaguchi successfully defended their title in 2019, and represented Japan at the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. There, they made it to the quarterfinal, where they lost to Australia.

Personal life

Fujisawa graduated from Hokkaido Kitami Hokuto High School in Kitami City in 2010. From then to early 2015, residing in Nagano Prefecture, she was employed as a curler and office worker for Chubu Electric Power, which has owned a competitive women's curling team based in Karuizawa, Nagano since 2009. Since returning to Kitami, she has been an employee of one of the local companies sponsoring her present team. She is currently an insurance agent.

Grand Slam record

Event2013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–192019–20
MastersQDNPDNPDNPDNPQQF
Tour ChallengeN/AN/ADNPDNPDNPDNPSF
The NationalN/AN/ADNPDNPDNPQFSF
Canadian OpenN/ADNPDNPDNPDNPQSF
Players'DNPDNPDNPDNPQFQFN/A
Champions CupN/AN/AQDNPDNPDNPN/A

Former events

Teams

Women's

Mixed doubles