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Cha Joon-hwan grabs a bronze at Junior Grand Prix Finals

Cha Joon-hwan grabs a bronze at Junior Grand Prix Finals

Posted December. 12, 2016 07:09,   

Updated December. 12, 2016 07:22

한국어
In eleven years since Kim Yuna reached the podium, Cha Joon-hwan grabbed a medal at the Junior Grand Prix Finals at the International Skating Union (ISU). Cha was recorded as the first Korean male figure skater to win a medal.

With a total of 225.55 points, including 153.70 (80.06 from Technical program, 74.64 from Component, and 1 deduction) from the free skating and 71.85 from the previous short program held at 2016-2017 ISU Junior Grand Prix Finals at Marseille, France on Saturday (local time), Cha was beaten by the Russians Dmitri Aliev (240.07) and Alexander Samarin (236.52).

The top-six contestants are qualified to perform at the Junior Grand Prix Finals after the Junior Grand Prix series, which are held only two times every season. Cha is the second Korean player to perform on the final stage, preceded by Lee Joon-hyung of Dankook University who was ranked lowest during the 2014-2015 season.

Cha made a mistake while jumping, both during his short program and free skating. The 15-year-old skate missed his first jump (triple lutz-triple toe loop combination) at the short and a jump at the latter half (triple axels-double toe loop combination) at free. “I made a mistake at the latter half. I would like to perform more calmly at the next match. The ice quality was also hard to get used to,” Cha said after his performances. "I performed very badly, but short is short, and free is free. I tried to forget the short and focus on free.”

The mistakes have been a tremendous lesson for Cha. After making a jump mistake, he improvised and made a combination jump, which was not included in his component. He perfected the quadruple jump (4 revolutions) and gained an additional point of 2.00.



Bo-Mi Im bom@donga.com