Shoma Uno, the defending champion, brushed off an injury scare and Ilia Malinin’s challenge to take the lead following the men’s short program at the global figure skating championships on Thursday.
At Saitama, north of Tokyo, where he was competing in front of his home crowd, Japanese competitor Uno put up a dominant performance to win with 104.63 points, beating out South Korean Cha Jun-hwan and 18-year-old American Malinin.
Uno, who injured his right ankle in a fall during practice the day before the competition, skated to John Mayer’s “Gravity” without displaying any signs of pain.
After finishing his routine, he gave a fist pump and skated off the ice beaming with his greatest score of the season.Self-described “QuadGod” Malinin lived up to his own hype with a mesmerizing performance to take second place and set a new personal best score.
After being the first skater to ever to complete the very difficult quadruple axel jump in competition in September of last year, the teenage wonder arrived in Japan with a strong reputation.
He did not include the move in his brief program, but he nonetheless dazzled the audience the entire time while skating to Garou’s “I Put A Spell On You” and wearing nothing but black.
In Saturday’s free skate, where he will attempt to build on the US championship he won earlier this year, he plans to use his quad axel.
Olympic champion Nathan Chen is unable to compete since he is a student, and due to the conflict in Ukraine, Russian skaters are once again prohibited from competing.
AFP