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Figure skater Cha Jun-hwan in 6th place after short program at final pre-Olympic event

Published: 25 Jan. 2026, 12:56 Updated: 25 Jan. 2026, 15:08

Cha Jun-hwan performs in the ISU Four Continents Championships 2026 at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing, China, on Jan. 24. [EPA/YONHAP]

Figure skater Cha Jun-hwan found himself in sixth place after the short program of his final pre-Olympic competition in China on Saturday.

Cha earned 88.89 points to begin the International Skating Union Four Continents Figure Skating Championships at the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing.

The free skate is scheduled for Sunday.

The Four Continents championships are open to non-European skaters, with those from Asia, North America, South America, Africa and Oceania taking the ice.

Cha won the 2022 Four Continents title. He was the bronze medalist in Shanghai in 2024 and won the silver medal in Seoul last year.

Cha has qualified for the upcoming Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, becoming only the second Korean figure skater to make it to three consecutive Winter Games.

He has been battling ankle problems all season, compounded by his trouble finding the pair of boots that fit just right. He recently said those issues were mostly behind him and he'd be ready to compete at a higher level at the Olympics than he had earlier in the season.

On Saturday, Cha opened his program with a clean quadruple salchow but fell trying to land the latter jump of the triple Lutz-triple loop combination. Cha landed a triple axel cleanly but lost points for underrotation on the landing. He earned high marks for his overall choreography and artistry, though they weren't enough to compensate for his miscue with jumps.

Another Olympic-bound skater from Korea, Kim Hyun-gyeom, scored 67.50 points to rank 17th. The one other Korean at the Four Continents, Lee Jae-keun, earned 82.25 points to put himself in seventh place.

Han Kwang-bom of North Korea ranked 25th, second from last, with 52.44 points and failed to qualify for the free skate.

Three Japanese skaters occupied the top three spots after the short program. Kao Miura is at the top with 98.59 points, followed by Kazuki Tomono with 97.19 points and Sota Yamamoto with 94.68 points.

Of these three, only Miura will compete at the Olympics, with Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato joining several others in skipping the Four Continents ahead of the Winter Games.

Yonhap