South Korea’s Cha Jun-hwan (Seoul City Hall) finished fourth in men’s singles figure skating, closing out his third Olympics with the best result ever by a Korean man.
Cha scored 181.20 points in the free skate at the 2026 Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics at the Milan Ice Skating Arena, earning 95.16 in technical elements and 87.04 in program components, with a one-point deduction.
He had scored 92.72 in the short program on Feb. 12, finishing with a total of 273.92 points for fourth place.
Cha placed 15th at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, then improved to fifth in 2022. He moved up another spot this time.
Skating 19th among 24 competitors, Cha performed his free-skate program, “Ballade for a Madman.” He opened with a clean quadruple salchow, but fell hard on his next jump, a quadruple toe loop, drawing a deduction.
He recovered to land a triple lutz-triple loop combination and a triple axel to complete his first four jumping passes. He continued with a level-four step sequence and stayed composed in the second half, where elements receive a 10% bonus.
Cha landed a triple flip-single Euler-triple salchow combination and a triple axel-double axel sequence. His change-foot combination spin was graded level three, and he finished his final jump, a triple flip, cleanly. He then completed the choreographic sequence, a level-four flying camel spin and a level-four flying change-foot combination spin. Afterward, he sat on the ice, showing disappointment.
Cha’s 273.92 total left him behind gold medalist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan (291.58), Yuma Kagiyama (280.06) and Shun Sato (274.90), both of Japan. Cha missed the bronze by 0.98 points.
* This article has been translated by AI.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.