The 2024 South Korean National Figure Skating Championships saw a return-to form from World silver medalist, Jun-hwan Cha, the continued rise of Jia Shin, and performances from Hai-in Lee, Chae-yeon Kim, and Young You that appear to have earned them spots on the 2024 World Championship team for South Korea.

Men’s Competition

Following a rough first half of the season for him, now eight time South Korean champion, Jun-hwan Cha, threw down two stellar programs and earned him his trip back to Worlds. His technical content was watered down, similar to the content he included at the Korean Ranking Competition late last year, but looked much more comfortable and confident on the ice here. He’ll need to increase difficultly at Four Continents and Worlds to be competitive, but this was a remarkable step in the right direction for him.

Also showing up well here was Si-hyeong Lee, who was stronger here than he has been in a while and looked like he’d made some improvements in his interpretation. His silver here will take him back to Worlds in Montreal this March.

Women’s Competition

The women’s competition was an interesting one, since 4 of the top 7 women here were Junior Level skaters.

That said, the now two-time National Champion, Jia Shin, looked anything but junior here. Both of her programs were elegant, musical, and highly technical. Her win by almost 13 points over reigning Senior World Silver medalist, Hae-in Lee, was a decisive one.

Hae-in Lee did have her strongest event of the season here, with a new short program that suited her style quite well. Her score ceiling is certainly higher with these two programs, so here’s hoping she can continue to improve headed into Four Continents and Worlds.

In third, Chae-yeon Kim came back from a 9th place short program to step onto the podium. Her long program was strong enough to give the impression that, had she had a clean short, she may have challenged for gold. This bodes well for her headed into the rest of the season.

Three other juniors, Yu-seong Kim, Yu-jae Kim, and Min-sol Kwon, took 4th-6h — all with very strong showings. This number of competitive women still in Juniors gives South Korea a great shot at future success if they can continue at the level they are at.

In seventh (but gold in our hearts!) was Young You. Her fantastic short program had her in second going into the long, but her lower technical content level in the long as well as a number of small mistakes dropped her to 7th overall. Regardless, it looks like she will still be on the senior World team due to so many ahead of her being juniors. We can’t wait to see her again!

Ice Dance Competition

This competition was more of an official coronation, since Hannah Lim and Ye Quan were the only team qualified to compete here. They were, as always, a joy to watch while earning first Senior National title— again showing why they are a team of the future!

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