Men’s and women’s figure skating standouts Cha Jun-hwan (Korea University) and Shin Jia (Youngdong Middle School) won the first round of the 2024-2025 National Team Trials with no upsets.
Cha earned a technical score of 87.00, an artistic score of 87.05 and a total score of 174.25 in the men’s single free skate at the 2023 KB Financial National Men’s and Women’s Figure Skating Championships, the first round of the national selection process, held at the Uijeongbu Indoor Ice Center in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi-do, on March 3.
This, combined with her short program score of 86.28, gave her a final total of 260.53 points to take first place, ahead of Kim Min-kyu (240.05 points – Kyungshin Jung) and Lee Jae-geun (238.50 points – Surigyo).
In the women’s single freeskating event held on the same day, Shin scored 79.45 points in the TES, 67.02 points in the PCS, and 146.47 points in the combined total, and 69.88 points in the short program for a final total of 216.35 points to win the title for the second consecutive year.
Second place went to Kim Chae-yeon (203.64 points – Surigao) and third to Wee Seo-young (193.51 points – Surigao).
Senior “two-tops” Lee Hae-in (186.78 points – Sewhwa Girls’ High School) and Kim Yerim (156.49 points – Dankook University) struggled a bit.
Cha Jun-hwan and Shin Jia have improved their chances of being selected for the national team next season with their victories.
The Taekwondo Mark for the 2024-2025 season will be awarded to the top four men’s singles and top eight women’s singles players based on the combined scores of the first selection round and the second selection round, which will be held next month.
Cha also earned a spot at the 2024 International Ice Skating Union (ISU) Four Continents Championships, which will be awarded to the top three finishers at the event.
Shin Jia is not eligible to compete at the Four Continents Championships due to the ISU’s age limit for senior international figure competitions.
At its General Assembly in June last year, the ISU raised the minimum age for figure senior international competition from 15 to 16 for the 2023-2024 season and 17 for the 2024-2025 season (as of July 1 prior to the competition).
Shin, who was born in March 2008, will still have to compete at the junior level next season.
Cha Jun-hwan was forced to withdraw from the competition due to pain.
Cha injured the nerve tissue in the ankle of his right foot before the start of the season and had to withdraw from the fifth edition of the ISU Senior Grand Prix, held last month from April 18-20, due to increasing pain.
Although he is still not feeling well, he was forced to compete in the event due to the rule that athletes cannot qualify for the national team if they miss a competition.
Cha chose to reduce the difficulty of his routine, with only one four-turn jump, and instead focused on stabilizing his performance.
He executed his first task, a quadruple salco, flawlessly, earning a 9.70 base score and a 2.91 GOE, and he also landed his second task, a triple axel, cleanly.
Cha continued his performance smoothly. After executing a clean triple lutz-single oiler-triple salchow combination jump, Cha completed his performance with a flying camel spin (level 4) and executed a triple lutz to perfection.
After winning the crowd’s applause with his elegant step sequence (Level 4), Cha continued his steady performance in the second half of his routine, which carries a 10% bonus.
He performed a triple flip-double axel sequence jump, followed by a triple loop and a triple flip.
Cha, who performed all of her jumping tasks, finished her performance with a change foot combination spin (level 3), a correo sequence, and a flying change foot combination spin (level 4).
Shin Jia performed an all-clean performance, landing a double axel, triple loop, triple salco, triple lutz-double toe-loop-double loop combination jump, followed by a clean triple lutz-triple toe-loop combination jump with a change foot combination spin (level 4).
In the second half, she performed a triple flip-double axel sequence jump and a triple lutz without a mistake before finishing her performance with a flying camel spin (level 4), step sequence (level 3), correo sequence, and flying change foot combination spin (level 4). 사설토토