Figure skating Cha Jun-hwan wins the 4 Continents... Korean men's first medal splendid achievement

Cha Jun-hwan, a Korean figure skating star, became the first Korean male single player to win a gold medal at the International Skating Union (ISU) Four Continents Championships.

In the men's single free skating at the ISU Four Continents Championships held in Estonia today (23rd), Cha Jun-hwan recorded 174.26 points with 86.48 TES, 88.78 PCS, and 1 deduction.

In the short program, Cha Jun-hwan, who scored 98.96 points, the highest point in the short program, secured the championship with a total of 273.22 points, beating Japan's Tomono Kazuki (268.99 points) and Miura Kao (251.07 points).

Cha Jun-hwan is the first Korean male single player to be on the podium at the Four Continents Championships held every year since 1999.

So far, only in women's singles, Yuna Kim (gold medal) in 2009 and Yoo Young (silver medal) in 2020 have won medals, while Haein Lee (silver medal) and Yerim Kim (bronze medalist) became medalists in the 2022 competition.

Cha Jun-hwan, who placed fifth in the history of a Korean male athlete at the Four Continents Championships held at Mokdong Indoor Ice Rink in Seoul in 2020, surpassed himself in two years.

In particular, the total score of 273.22 is a record that raised the highest score (265.43 points) set at the 2020 Four Continents by 7.79 points.

World-class athletes Nathan Chen (USA) and Hanyu Yuzuru (Japan) were absent, but Cha Jun-hwan showed a high-quality performance and revealed the prospects for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Si-hyeong Lee, who participated in the competition together, finished 7th (223.18 points), and Jae-seok Gyeong finished 14th (187.97 points).

Junhwan Cha fell while jumping the quadruple toe loop, the first jump task in free skating, but immediately made up for his mistake by neatly handling the quadruple salcho and triple lutz-triple loop combination jump.

Afterwards, Cha Junhwan regained his stability by performing a flying camel spin (level 4) and a step sequence (level 3).

In the triple axel-double toe loop combination jump, points were again deducted, but the triple axel, triple lutz-single euler-triple salcho combination jump, and triple flip were perfectly digested.

After completing the jump task, he proudly climbed to the top of the podium by handling both the change foot sit spin and the change foot combination spin as the highest difficulty level 4 following the choreo sequence (level 1).