Korean figure has achieved yet another feat.
The next in line to succeed Cha Jun-hwan, 16-year-old Min Min-kyu, a freshman, became the first Korean male figure skater to win gold at the International Ice Skating Union (ISU) Figure Junior World Championships. After not even making the podium at the Junior Grand Prix at the start of the season, Min Min-kyu has come a long way to reach the top of the podium at the Junior World Championships.
On February 2 at the 2024 ISU Figure Junior World Championships at Taipei Arena in Taipei, Taiwan, the Korean skater earned a technical score of 73.54 points and a perfect score of 76.72 points for a total of 150.17 points in the men’s single free skate. Min was second in the free skate alone, behind Rio Nakata (JPN – 151.71 points), but he won the gold medal with a total score of 230.75 points after adding his short program score of 80.58 points (a personal best) from two days earlier on the 29th of last month. Min Min-kyu took first place in the short program.
The silver medal went to Nakata (229.31 points). Adam Hagara (Slovakia – 225.61 points) took the bronze medal.
Sunsuke Nakamura (JPN) finished fourth with 215.46 points, while France and Pitot (FRA – 214.95 points), who finished second in the short program, followed closely behind Min Min-kyu in fourth and fifth, respectively. Lee Jae-geun, who competed alongside Min, finished sixth with 212.22 points. Based on the combined performance of Min Min-kyu and Lee Jae-geun at this event, the Korean men’s figure team will receive a total of three quotas for next year’s competition in Debrecen, Hungary.
Although he made one mistake in his jump, the other competitors were not at their best, and the skater who made the fewest mistakes, Min Min-kyu, was able to celebrate with a gold medal around his neck.
Moving to the original soundtrack (OST) of the musical Notre Dame de Paris, the freeskating theme song, Min Min-kyu got off to a good start with a clean landing of his first jump, a triple axel-double toeloop combination (9.30 base score), which earned him 1.37 GOE points, but his second jump, a triple axel (8.00 base score), was only able to go around once due to a twisted step. Her base score dropped to 1.10 and her GOE was -0.05 points.
But Min was unfazed and continued to work through the rest of the technical elements.
After earning a GOE of 0.98 on his third jump, a triple loop (base score of 4.90), Min added a GOE of 0.87 by executing his flying camel spin (base score of 3.20) at the highest level, difficulty 4. He also executed the Correo sequence (base score of 3.00) perfectly, earning a GOE of 1.79. The change foot combination spin (base score 3.50) also scored a level 4, earning a GOE of 1.15 points.
His fourth jump of the free skate, a triple flip-triple toeloop (base score 9.50) combination jump, was also completed without a mistake, earning him a GOE of 1.29, and he pushed for a high score by landing three jumps in the second half of his routine, which is worth 10 percent extra points.
Earning GOEs of 1.26 and 1.14 for his triple lutz (base score of 6.49) and triple flip-double axel-double axel-sequence combination jump (base score of 13.09), respectively, Min completed all seven of his free skating jumps, including his final jump, a triple salchow solo (base score of 4.73), which earned him a GOE of 0.98.
She finished her performance with a change foot sit spin (base score of 3.00) for another 0.86 GOE.
Dolls and flowers poured onto the rink. The Taipei Arena erupted in cheers for the 16-year-old Korean boy’s fantastic performance. Min Min-kyu didn’t seem to be disappointed, smiling as he moved on to the kiss and cry zone. When his free skate score of 150.17 points was announced, he was still unsure of his final ranking, but when the announcement was made that he had finished first overall, he hugged his coach and other team members and basked in the emotions of a world junior champion.
In doing so, Min Min-kyu became the first Korean figure skater in history to win a gold medal, let alone a medal, in the men’s singles at the Junior World Championships.
South Korea’s previous medal attempts came at the 2016 Debrecen and 2017 Taipei Games, where Cha Jun-hwan, the country’s current senior standout, finished seventh and fifth, respectively. Last year in Calgary, Canada, Kim Hyun-gyeom, who had just won gold at the Pyeongchang Youth Olympic Winter Games, finished sixth.
With such a strong field of figure athletes, it’s hard to win a medal in the men’s singles, but Min Min-kyu won gold in his first Junior World Championships.
Including other events, this was the seventh medal for Korean figure at the Junior World Championships.
Previously, “Figure Queen” Kim Yeon-ah won silver in 2005 in Kittsner, Canada, and gold in 2006 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in the women’s singles event. Shin Jia, the No. 1 ranked “post-Kim,” has now won three consecutive silver medals in the women’s singles – in Tallinn, Estonia in 2022, Calgary last year and Taipei this year.
At last year’s Games, the pair of Lim Hanna and Quan Ye finished second in ice dancing, expanding the scope of Korean figure.
This time, the first men’s singles medal came in the form of gold. The main character was Min Min-kyu.
Most figure skaters train in the capital city of Seoul. However, Min Min-gyu is an unusual case, as he trains in Daegu and travels back and forth to Seoul. His mother, Kim Eun-ju, has been a figure coach in Daegu for more than 20 years and has taught several national standing armies, so he was naturally introduced to the sport from a young age.
He started competing at the age of five on the vault and began competing professionally at the age of eight.
His rise to prominence has been steep since the recent 2022-2023 season. In September 2022, he showed promise with a first-place short program at the ISU Junior 토토 Grand Prix Czech Republic (fourth in the final), and a month later he won bronze at the Junior Grand Prix Poland, his first international medal.
After finishing fifth in the short program and fourth in the free skate at the Junior Grand Prix Thailand in August last year, he turned things around two weeks later at the Junior Grand Prix Turkuye to win a surprise gold medal. He followed that up with a third-place finish at the Korean All-Around Championships in January, which is open to senior skaters, and then went on to win the Junior World Championships, an unexpected victory for an athlete who has been touted as the future of Korean figure skating for the next decade.
Min Min-kyu was born on October 14, 2008, so he will not be eligible to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina due to a three-month gap. However, he showed at the Junior World Championships that he has the talent to succeed last year’s senior world championship runner-up Cha Jun-hwan at the 2030 Winter Olympics and beyond.
His next challenge will be to land the difficult four-turn jump.
Although this was a junior world championships, Japanese athletes such as Nakata and Nakamura attempted the four-turn jump in their freeskating. Nakamura landed a quadruple toeloop (base score of 9.00), earning a GOE of 1.90. The previous day’s women’s freeskating had shown that while there is a risk of failure due to the difficulty of the jumps, when they succeed, they can earn very high scores and blow away the other skaters in the TES. In the men’s competition, the four-turn jump has become especially essential, and Min Min-kyu will need to master it to be competitive at the senior international level.
Korean figure now has multiple high-level athletes competing in men’s figure with 18-year-old Kim Hyun-gyeom, who won gold at the Youth Olympic Games last month. Kim won the event with a score of 216.73 points, beating out Hagara and Li Yanhao (NZL).
Shin Jia’s silver medal in the women’s singles and Min Min-kyu’s historic gold medal at the Junior World Championships made this the first time Korea has won two medals (team) in two years. Shin Jia and Min Min-kyu will continue to compete at the junior level next year, so with younger athletes competing alongside them, it is likely that the team will do well at next year’s Junior World Championships.