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| Figure skater Cha Jun-hwan of South Korea, competes during the men's short program figure skating competition at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. AP-Yonhap |
South Korean figure skater Cha Jun-hwan established a new personal best score to rank fourth after the short program in the men's singles competition at Beijing 2022, Tuesday.
With a flawless performance at Capital Indoor Stadium, Cha scored 99.51 points to position himself for a historic medal. No South Korean man has won an Olympic figure skating medal. Kim Yu-na won the women's singles gold medal in 2010 and picked up silver four years later.
The top three skaters all scored over 100 points, led by Nathan Chen of the United States with 113.97 points. He was followed by two Japanese skaters: Yuma Kagiyama with 108.12 and Shoma Uno, 105.90.
The free skate is scheduled for Thursday.
Cha's previous personal best was 98.96 points, which he earned en route to winning the men's singles title at the International Skating Union (ISU) Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in late January.
Skating to "Fate of the Clockmaker" by Eternal Eclipse and Flynn Hase Spence and "Cloak and Dagger" by Bianca Ban, Cha opened his program with a clean quadruple salchow. He followed that up with a successful triple lutz-triple loop combination jump. He received the perfect Level 4 on all of his other elements: flying camel spin, change foot sit spin, step sequence and change foot combination spin. He sprinkled in a clean triple axel along the way.
Cha finished more than four points ahead of Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, the two-time Olympic champion who finds himself in eighth place at 95.15 points.
In his Olympic debut four years ago, Cha finished in 15th place, the best Olympic showing by a South Korean male skater. He looks primed to crack the top 10.
Lee Si-hyeong, the one other South Korean skater in action Tuesday, ranked 27th with 65.69 points and failed to qualify for the free skate. Only the top 24 out of 29 skaters will get to perform their long program. (Yonhap)
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