Yoshida first encountered windsurfing in the first grade of elementary school. His father enjoyed the sport as a hobby, and before he realized it, Yoshida found himself climbing onto a board as well. Although windsurfing requires considerable skill to master, particularly when it comes to handling the sail, Yoshida picked it up relatively quickly. "Maybe it was because I was so young that I wasn't really afraid," he recalls.
After moving from Tokushima Prefecture to Shiga Prefecture during elementary school, Lake Biwa became Yoshida’s training ground. "Back then, I was good at windsurfing by instinct, so I liked wave sailing (an event where you perform jumps and turns using the waves) and freestyle (an event where you perform tricks on flat water)," he says. At the same time, he also competed in course racing (an event in which athletes race around a predefined course), so he was able to gain competitive experience from his elementary school years. By the sixth grade, Yoshida had qualified for the Junior All Japan Championships and was selected as a designated development athlete, establishing himself as a promising talent early in his career.

In his second year of junior high school, as he continued competing in a variety of events, Yoshida realized he needed to define the direction of his competitive career and decided to pursue freestyle as a professional. "Around that time, there was talk that course racing might be dropped from the Olympics, so that definitely influenced my decision," Yoshida recounts.
When the time came to advance to high school, Yoshida was searching for an environment where he could fully dedicate himself to the sport, so he chose Ritsumeikan Moriyama Senior High School. The deciding factors were that the school allowed him to focus on competition without the distraction of university entrance examinations as he pursued a professional career, and that he trained alongside upperclassmen from the Ritsumeikan University Windsurfing Team, which made him feel at home at Ritsumeikan from the outset. After steadily building up his competitive track record, he achieved his goal of earning professional status in his third year of high school. To turn pro, he had to finish first in the annual overall amateur rankings, a demanding requirement that called for consistent excellence throughout the season.

Upon enrolling at Ritsumeikan University, Yoshida entered the College of Information Science and Engineering, determined to balance his studies with competition. By carefully planning his coursework so he could use his free time during the week for training, he was able to devote weekends to practice. "Ritsumeikan has excellent gym facilities, and because it's a university with a strong sporting tradition, there was a solid support system in place that made it easier to balance academics and competition," Yoshida says.
After entering the university, however, Yoshida had an encounter that would prove to be a major turning point. By joining the Ritsumeikan University Windsurfing Team, he was reunited with windsurfing friends he had known previously and found himself surrounded by more training partners than ever before. "Up until then, I had trained largely on my own. Without coaches or regular training partners, I relied on videos and training trips to teach myself, so I was struggling mentally with things like a lack of feedback and how to stay motivated. But once I joined a group of like-minded people who could push each other to excel, I found myself in an environment where I could achieve even better results, " he recalls.
Thanks to making these friends, Yoshida resumed competing in course racing. As one of the team's more experienced members in a group that included many beginners, he also took on a leadership role within the team. By coaching his teammates and exchanging ideas with them, he helped raise the team's overall level, contributing to a dramatic improvement in the university's results. Before Yoshida joined the team, Ritsumeikan typically finished outside the top ten in the Intercollegiate Team Championships, but after he joined, they placed fifth, then second, and eventually captured the title.
Yoshida was also selected to represent Japan as a member of the student national team in his third and fourth years. "Whether it was within the team or while coaching students from other schools as a member of the student national team, putting my own techniques into words significantly improved my competitive performance, " he explains. Joining a team and having teammates around him became a turning point that changed the way Yoshida approached the sport.

After being selected to represent Japan, Yoshida competed in the Course Racing World Championships twice. Last year, a fall during the competition left him in sixth place. This April, however, he returned to claim the title. Reflecting on the two world championships, Yoshida says: "The athletes from other countries were physically bigger than I was, and I realized that the style that had worked well for me in Japan didn't necessarily translate on the world stage. There were times where I struggled, but during the races I analyzed how the other athletes moved and adapted my form and technique accordingly, which allowed me to move up the standings. I made countless small adjustments, like changing the position of my harness and the way I used my feet, to adapt my own style. Being able to change course and respond as needed in the middle of a competition was a tremendous learning experience."

Having reached the top of the world in course racing, Yoshida is now considering entering the Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, and he hopes to further improve his competitive performance. Specifically, he aims to climb the domestic rankings in freestyle while also competing in course racing at the Japan Games. In the short term, his goal is to win the Intercollegiate Championships, where he finished second individually last year. "At last year’s Intercollegiate Championships, I realized how important mental control is, so I’ve been using videos from competitions to practice visualization techniques and strengthen my mental game, " he says, looking ahead.
As he speaks about the future, Yoshida’s eyes light up: "I want to continue competing for as long as I can. I also hope I can help get more people involved in windsurfing and raise the sport’s profile. I want to spread the word of what makes windsurfing special by organizing events like hands-on trial sessions. " We look forward to seeing Yoshida continue to lead the windsurfing world and inspire the next generation of athletes.