South Korea’s top men’s figure skater, Cha Jun-hwan (Seoul City Hall), said he will focus on polishing his performance rather than raising difficulty ahead of the free skate.
After official practice on Thursday (Korea time) at the Milan Ice Skating Arena in Italy, Cha told reporters the gap to the third-place skater is large and “it seems like there needs to be a way to increase difficulty to win a medal,” but he plans to “perform the elements I’ve been doing so far” and concentrate on improving execution.
Cha placed sixth in the short program on Tuesday with 92.72 points (50.08 technical, 42.64 program components). He trails third-place Adam Siao Him Fa of France by 9.83 points.
Early in the 2025-26 season, Cha attempted three quadruple jumps in the free skate, including a combination, but later reduced his layout to two solo quads. That left open the option of adding higher-difficulty elements to push into medal position, but he said he would make the same choice he made at the Harbin Asian Winter Games.
At Harbin, Cha scored 93.09 in the short program, 9.72 points behind Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (103.81). He did not raise difficulty to chase the deficit and instead focused on delivering his planned program. Cha landed two quadruple jumps and won after Kagiyama made repeated mistakes. Cha said he is aiming for a medal with the same approach in Milan.
Cha also said he was disappointed by his short-program score. Although he delivered a near-clean skate, he received an under-rotation call on his triple Axel and earned only Level 3 on the step sequence.
“When I checked the score, it was lower than I expected, so I was disappointed,” he said. “If the technical score was low, I could accept it, but I was especially disappointed that the program component score came out low.”
He said he thought a lot after the short program and decided to enjoy the process rather than focus on the result. “I didn’t get the score I wanted, but in the moment I think I showed what I wanted to show. The fact that I did my best doesn’t change, so I’m satisfied,” he said.
On ice conditions that some athletes have criticized at these Olympics, Cha said the ice feels “a bit soft” even for figure skaters and that the moisture is a concern. “If there’s a lot of moisture, it can freeze as it is and create bumps on the surface,” he said, adding he would need to keep that in mind in competition.
Cha is scheduled to skate in the men’s free skate at 3 a.m. Friday (Korea time).
* This article has been translated by AI.
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