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Silver medallist Korea’s Cha Jun-hwan poses together with his medal after ending second within the mens competitors on the ISU 4 Continents Determine Skating Championships in Beijing, Jan. 25. AFP-Yonhap
Determine skater Cha Jun-hwan completed second at his ultimate Olympic tuneup competitors in China, Sunday, due to his finest free skate of a season tormented by nagging ankle points.
Cha earned a season-best 273.62 factors total on the Worldwide Skating Union 4 Continents Determine Skating Championships on the Nationwide Indoor Stadium in Beijing, ending up solely 0.11 level behind the winner from Japan, Kao Miura.
Cha scored his season-best 184.73 factors in Sunday’s free skate, the best mark amongst 24 contestants, a day after placing up 88.89 factors within the quick program to rank sixth.
Miura solely had the fourth-best free skate rating of 175.14 factors however he had led Cha by practically 10 factors within the quick program and held on for his second profession 4 Continents title.
Sota Yamamoto of Japan completed third with 270.07 factors.
The 4 Continents championships are open to non-European skaters, with these from Asia, North America, South America, Africa and Oceania taking the ice.
Cha, the 2022 4 Continents champion who additionally grabbed silver in 2025 and bronze in 2024, is headed to his third consecutive Winter Olympics within the Italian metropolis of Milan subsequent month.
He positioned fifteenth at his Olympic debut on house ice on the 2018 PyeongChang Video games, after which completed fifth 4 years later in Beijing — the very best Olympic efficiency by a South Korean male determine skater.
The 24-year-old has been coping with nagging ankle points all season, introduced on by his problem discovering the pair of shoes that match, and it has compelled him to change his packages as he now makes an attempt two quadruple jumps within the free skate, down from his typical three.
With Sunday’s clear free skate, although, Cha confirmed these issues are actually largely behind him.
Korea’s Cha Jun-hwan competes within the males’s free skating on the ISU 4 Continents Determine Skating Championships in Beijing, Jan. 25. AFP-Yonhap
He opened his program with the clear execution of the quadruple salchow and the quadruple toe loop, which set the tone for the remainder of the best way. Cha then nailed his triple lutz and triple axel, and later earned extra execution factors for a sequence of mixture jumps, step sequence and spins.
Cha was nonetheless in first place total with solely Miura left to take the ice. The Japanese skater, who had additionally gained the 2023 4 Continents, did not land two of his first three quadruple jumps cleanly, however nonetheless scored sufficient factors to carry off Cha with 273.73 factors total.
Whether or not Cha’s efficiency Sunday will bolt him to medal competition in Milan stays to be seen, given the absence of some huge names on the 4 Continents — together with Ilia Malinin of america, the two-time world champion, and Yuma Kagiyama of Japan, the 2022 Olympic silver medalist.
Cha can be joined on the Olympics by Kim Hyun-gyeom, who completed seventeenth on the 4 Continents with 208.92 factors.
The third Korean skater in motion Sunday, Lee Jae-keun, scored 211.22 factors total to complete sixteenth.
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