Korea participated for the first time in the ‘Team Trophy’, a national figure skating competition. Cha Jun-hwan and Lee Hae-in메이저놀이터, both men’s and women’s singles players, showed perfect performances side by side in the short program and ranked second in the overall rankings.
This is reporter Ha Seong-ryong.
<Reporter>
With captain Cha Jun-hwan at the forefront, our national team, wearing Taegeukgi headbands and entering the silver class, announced the start of the festival by performing K-pop choreography.
Amid the heated cheering of colleagues as it was a ‘team event’, Lee Hae-in, who achieved a silver medal in women’s singles at the World Championships last month, flew splendidly in the short program on the first day.
Starting with the double axel, she performed perfectly on three jumps, and received the highest level of both step and spin.
Lee Hae-in, who performed the best performance of her life and performed her heart ceremony, broke her personal best score by more than 3 points with her 76.90 points, proudly beating world championship gold medalist Kaori Sakamoto of Japan to take first place.
Kim Ye-rim, who competed with her, finished in 7th place, but thanks to Lee Hae-in’s performance, the national team took second place after Japan in the women’s single short program.
In men’s singles, world championship silver medalist Cha Jun-hwan broke his dream 100 mark.
He scored 101.33 points for all three jumps, steps and spins, including his main weapon quadruple salchow, breaking his personal best by 1.69 points.
Cha Jun-hwan, who became the first Korean player to exceed 100 points in the short program and placed second, embraced his teammates and cheered.
Lee Si-hyeong ranked 10th out of 12, and ice dancing Lim Hae-na-Ye-kwan, who made her senior stage debut, took 6th place.