South Korean figure women’s singles ‘next big thing’ Shin Jia (Youngdongjoong) won silver for the second consecutive year at the International Ice Skating Union (ISU) Figure Junior Grand Prix Final.

It is the first time in 18 years that a South Korean athlete has stood on the podium at the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final since “Figure Queen” Kim Yeon-ah.

Shin earned a combined technical score of 68.18 and artistic score of 63.49 for a total of 131.67 points in her free skate at the 2023-2024 ISU Figure Junior Grand Prix Final in Beijing, China, on Monday.

After taking the lead in the short program the day before with a 69.08, Shinjia combined her freeskating scores for a total of 200.75 points, trailing Japan’s Mao Shimada (206.33 total) by 5.58 points to take the runner-up spot.

Shimada earned 138.06 points in the free skate with a TES of 75.12 and a PCS of 62.94.

After winning the silver medal at the Junior Grand Prix Final last year, Shin Jia took home the silver medal at this year’s event, marking her second consecutive year on the podium.

This makes her the first skater in 18 years to win back-to-back medals in the Junior Grand Prix Final since Kim Yeon-ah (silver in 2004-2005 and gold in 2005-2006).

The Junior Grand Prix Final is a best-of-three competition featuring only the top six athletes from the first through seventh rounds of the Junior Grand Prix Series.

Her teammates Kim Yoo-sung (Pyeongchon Middle School – 190.48 points) and Kwon Min-sol (Mokdong Middle School – 183.06 points) finished fourth and sixth, respectively.

Shin has won two gold medals (competitions 2-5) and one silver (Grand Prix Final) in the Grand Prix Series this season.

The difficulty of the jumps changed the color of the medals.

In the free skate, Shin lost out to Shimada, who landed a triple axel (three and a half turns in the air) and a quadruple toeloop (four turns in the air).

Shimada and Shinji faced off in the short program with the same three jumps: a triple flip-triple toe-loop combination jump, a double axel, and a triple lutz, with Shinji taking the lead in jump completion.

However, it was a different story in the free skate.

Shimada landed a triple axel and quadruple toe loop, which are still challenging for women, to edge out Shin, who landed a double axel and triple lutz.

Shinjia was actually ahead in the artistic score, but the difference in the technical score ultimately changed the color of the medals.

As the sixth and final performer, Shin executed her first jump, a double axel, flawlessly, but missed a rotation on her subsequent triple loop jump, deducting 0.35 points from her performance score (GOE).

After safely executing a triple salco, a triple flip-double toe loop-double loop combination jump, and a triple rough-triple toe loop combination jump, Shinji was penalized 1.06 GOE points on her triple flip-double axel sequence jump for attentiveness (attention to edges) and lack of rotation.

Shinjia finished her performance with three spins, only one of which received a maximum difficulty of Level 4 and two of which were Level 3.

Shimada, on the other hand, started her routine with a triple axel and immediately landed a quadruple toe loop to build her confidence.

Shimada’s triple lutz-triple toe-loop combination jump and triple salchow-triple toe-loop-double toe-loop combination jump were both ruled out of rotation and she landed a single triple loop, cutting into her GOE, but she was able to pull off the upset thanks to her two “special moves”. 슬롯게이밍