Korean figure skaters vie for world championship victory

Two teenage Korean figure skaters will each try to lock down world championship spots this weekend at the biggest national competition.

Cha Jun-hwan, 17, and Lim Eun-soo, 15, are favorites to win the Korea Figure Skating Championships at Mokdong Ice Rink in Seoul. Their short programs will be Saturday, followed by free skates on Sunday.

This will be the second and final leg of the national qualification series for the 2019 International Skating Union (ISU) World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, Japan, in March. The first leg was the Korea Skating Union (KSU) President’s Cup in December.

Korea can send one skater from the men’s singles and another from the women’s singles to the worlds, and the top performers from each discipline based on the combined points from the two events will represent the country.

Cha will look to skate at the senior worlds for the first time, after competing twice at the junior world championships.

Things are a bit tighter in the women’s singles. Lim won the first qualifying competition with 196.79 points and You Young finished second at 183.53 points, followed by Kim Ye-lim at 181.44.

Yonhap