‘Queen Yuna’ after 14 years… Lee Hae-in and Kim Ye-rim Jump
‘Post Yuna Kim’ Lee Hae-in (18, Sehwa Girls’ High School) and Kim Ye-rim (20, Dankook University) are showing off their skills on the international stage. At the World Championships held in Saitama, Japan next month, expectations are raised whether a Korean player will be able to win a medal in 10 years since Kim Yu-na.
Korean figure skating has not been able to achieve significant results in women’s singles for a while since Yuna Kim’s retirement in 2014. The most notable achievement was Choi Da-bin (23, Korea University), a second-generation post-Kim Yu-na, winning the gold medal at the Asian Winter Games for the first time in history in 2017. Since then, the third-generation trio Kim Ye-rim, Lim Eun-soo (20, Korea University), and Yoo Young (19, Surigo) have appeared, and the fourth-generation Hae-in Lee has emerged, changing the atmosphere.
Lee Hae-in drew attention in September 2019, when she was 14 years old, by winning the 3rd and 6th competitions of the International Skating Union (ISU) Junior Grand Prix in a row and advancing to the Junior Grand Prix Final. Lee Hae-in, who placed 10th at the 2021 World Championships, her senior debut, and set her record as the youngest Korean top 10, suffered subsequent ups and downs and failed to qualify for the Beijing바카라사이트 Winter Olympics. However, last year she won her silver medal at the Four Continents Championships and Lee Hae-in, who came 7th at the World Championships, spread her wings again on the 11th (Korean time) when she topped the women’s singles at the Four Continents Championships.
All of Lee Hae-in’s achievements, including winning two consecutive Junior Grand Prix competitions, advancing to the finals, and winning the Four Continents Championships, are all achievements 14 years after Kim Yu-na.
Kim Ye-rim, who won the bronze medal at the Four Continents Championships last year and finished ninth at the Beijing Winter Olympics, participated in the 2022-23 Senior Grand Prix twice in November of the same year, winning gold and silver medals and advancing to the finals. Lim Eun-soo and Yoo Young won the bronze medal at the Grand Prix after Yuna Kim, but it was the first time in 13 years since Kim Yu-na that she went beyond the silver medal to reach the top and reached the final. Kim Ye-rim was first in the short program at the Four Continents Championships, but she made some mistakes in the free skating and gave up the gold medal to Lee Hae-in.
Lee Hae-in and Kim Ye-rim agreed through their management company All That Sports, “We will do our best to achieve good results at the world championships.”
On the other hand, Cha Jun-hwan (22, Korea University), who challenged to win the men’s singles title at the Four Continents Championships for the second consecutive time, finished fourth. I scored 166.37 points (4th place) in free skating on the 12th and 83.77 points (5th place) in the short program the day before and received a final score of 250.14 points, but it was painful to fall two days in a row. Miura Gao (Japan), Keegan Messing (Canada), and Sato (Japan) won gold, silver and bronze.