“I am especially grateful to Yuna Kim.”
Lee Hae-in (17, Sehwa Girls’ High School)먹튀검증, who won a medal at the World Figure Skating Championships 10 years after Kim Yu-na, the “Queen of Figure Skating”, first thought of Kim Yu-na after the game.
In the women’s single free skating at the 2023 International Skating Union (ISU) Figure Skating World Championships held at Super Arena in Saitama, Japan on the 24th, Lee Hae-in scored 75.53 points in technical score (TES) and 71.79 points in art score (PCS), totaling 147.32 points, and 24 people. ranked 1st among Lee Hae-in added 73.62 points (2nd place) in the short program secured the day before, and with a final total score of 220.94, she placed 1st in the short program and 2nd place in the free, 3.67 points behind Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto (224.61 points) and placed 2nd in the final. Lee Hae-in also broke her personal best score (213.52 points) recorded at the 2022 Four Continents Championships by 7.42 points.
It is the first time in 10 years since Kim Yu-na (2 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze) that a Korean athlete won a medal at the World Figure Skating Championships. The bronze medal went to Luna Hendricks (Belgium) who scored 210.42 points.
Lee Hae-in, who started her performance elegantly according to the original soundtrack (OST) of the free skating program ‘Phantom of the Opera’, continued her stable performance except for the lack of rotation in her triple lutz-triple toe loop combination jump in the first half. Even in the second half, when she gets 10% bonus, she perfectly executed the triple lutz-double toe loop-double loop combination jump, and also cleaned the triple flip and double axel.
Kim Chae-yeon (Suri High School), who competed together, took 6th place with a total score of 203.51, and Kim Ye-rim (Dankook University) placed 18th with 174.30 points. Thanks to Lee Hae-in and Kim Chae-yeon’s performance, Korea secured three women’s singles tickets for next year’s World Championships.
In an interview with US Golden Skate after the game, Lee Hae-in thanked Yuna Kim and said, “Her sister gave me a lot of advice on things outside of the game as well as her attitude towards the game. She is Yuna Kim, she is my eternal role model,” she said. She also added, “I will focus more on preparing for the next season without thinking about winning the World Championships.”
At the official press conference, he said, “I was sick at the beginning of this season, but I learned how to get back up.