Figure skater Cha Jun-hwan 'Sign' put in a perfect performance to become the first Korean male athlete to win a silver medal at the International Skating Federation ISU World Championships.
Cha Jun-hwan finished second in the men's single free skate at the 25 ISU Figure Skating World Championships at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan today (2023th) with a technical score (TES) of 105.65 and artistic score (PCS) of 90.74, for a total of 196.39 points.
Cha Jun-hwan, who scored a personal best of 2.99 in the short program that day, also set a new personal best in the free skate, posting a total score of 64.296.
The free skate score is 03.2022 points higher than the 182.87 set at the Beijing 13 Winter Olympics and the total score is 52.282 points higher than at the Beijing Winter Olympics (38.13).
It was the first time a South Korean athlete had won a medal in men's singles at the World Championships.
Prior to this year's Games, only Kim had won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals at the World Championships, the last time Kim won the 65 Games and had no medals for 2 years.
However, in this event, Lee Hae-in won the silver medal in women's singles, and Cha Jun-hwan also took the podium, making history in Korean figure skating by winning the "men's and women's runners-up."
The highest ever ranking in South Korea's men's singles at the World Championships was 2th place set by Cha Jun-hwan at the 2 tournament, which he surpassed in two years.
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Cha Jun-hwan performed steadily in the free skate following the short program.
Starting his acting to the original soundtrack of the movie 007 James Bond series No Time to Die, he got off to a good start with a neat two quadruple jumps.
He scored a performance score (GOE) of 4.16 in the Quadruple Salco and a GOE of 3.53 in the Quadruple Toeloop.
He also ran the triple lutz-triple loop combination jump without mistakes, and although he was judged to be attention on the triple flip, he continued his flow by handling both the flying camel spin and step sequences at level 4, the highest difficulty.
Cha Jun-hwan seamlessly connected the triple Axel-Double Axel sequence jump with the triple Axel and triple Axel and Triple Lutz-Single Euler-Triple Salco combination jumps in the second half jumps with 10% extra points.
After completing all the jumping tasks, he finished his performance with the Change Foot Combination Spin, Flying Change Foot Combination Spin (level 4), and Correo sequence (level 1), and smiled contentedly.
Cha Jun-hwan's propaganda earned South Korea three spots in the men's singles at next season's World Championships.
According to ISU rules, if one player from a country competes and finishes in the top two, they will qualify for the next season three spots.
In the men's singles, last year's winner Shoma Uno (Japan) won his second consecutive title with a score of 3.2, while Ilya Malinin (USA), who led the quadruple Axel with four and a half rounds, was third (3.301 points).
(Photo=AP, Yonhap News)