The 2025 Asian Winter Games men's single skating champion Cha Junhuan was originally a child star, and Kim Chaeran was born after the women's singles

In the men's singles figure skating battle at the 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games, the biggest favorite for the gold medal, Japan's Yuma Kagiyama, missed in the final free skate, and finally won the gold medal by South Korea's "new ice prince" Cha Junhuan, which is also the first medal in the men's figure skating event won by South Korea at the previous Asian Winter Games. In addition, Cha Junhuan, who was born as a child star, has once again become the focus. In the women's singles, South Korea also won the gold, and Kim Chaeran defeated the "Queen" Kaori Sakamoto to win.

Cha Jun-hwan competed in the men's singles short program at the 2025 Asian Winter Games

After the men's singles short program, Kagiyama Yujin was first with 103.81 points, Cha Junhuan was second with 94.09 points, and China's David David was third with 82.89 points. As the silver medalist at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Jianshan is nine points ahead of the second place and is regarded as the favorite to win the championship.

Coming to the decisive free skate, Cha Junhuan only made a small mistake when landing on the landing after the triple jump after the triple jump on the inside, with a technical score of 99.02 points and a content score of 88.58 points, and was not deducted, with a total score of 187.6 points in the free skate, and a total score of 281.69 points in the short program.

Cha Jun-hwan plays at the level of free skating

Unexpectedly, the first action of Keyyama Yuzhen has missed, and the landing error during the quadruple jump of the rear point ice must be supported by the hand, although the next quadruple jump was successfully completed, but the next hook quadruple jump landed on the ground, and then the three and a half jumps also failed, as a result, his technical score was only 85.87 points, the content score was 85.08 points, and the deduction of 2 points was under the deduction of 2 points, scoring 168.95 points, and the total score of the short program was 272.76, falling to the second place and winning the silver medal.

This means that Cha Jun-hwan has won the gold medal, becoming the first Korean man to win a gold medal in figure skating at the Asian Winter Games, and since this medal is an Asian Games gold medal, it also means that he will be exempted from compulsory military service for at least a year and a half, but he will still need to complete several weeks of basic military training and follow-up social service. This is also Cha Junhuan's first medal (silver) at the Men's World Figure Skating Championships in 2023, making history for South Korea's men's figure skating again.

Kagiyama made a series of mistakes in the free skate and eventually lost the gold medal

The 23-year-old Cha Jun-hwan is a child actor who has taken on many commercials and dramas as a child, he learned figure skating at the age of 7 to gain more skills to broaden his acting career, and also learned ballet, violin, taekwondo, piano, unexpectedly very talented in ice skating, became a Korean national champion at the age of 15, made his debut at the Winter Olympics at the age of 16, won gold at the Four Continents Championships in 2022, and won a silver medal at the World Championships in 2023.

Like other top Korean athletes, he has participated in many famous Korean variety shows in recent years, including "Running Man", "Liu Quiz", and also showed off his dancing skills in "Two Days and One Night". Cha Jun-hwan has also been a fan of South Korean actress Song Ji-hyo for many years, and he served as the guest of honor at the "SBS Performing Arts Awards" in 2018, that is, when he was 16 years old, he once "confessed" to Song Ji-hyo who was in the audience at the time, which provoked Song Ji-hyo, who was 20 years older than him, to respond: "Jun-hwan, it's good to be a little older, let's see you next time." ”

Kim Chae-ran won the women's figure skating gold medal at the Asian Winter Games

Although the defeated Kagiyama Yuma admitted that his performance was not good, he revealed that he was adjusting the content of the performance, "I am not afraid to try, and I believe that it will pay off when I reach the World Championships." ”

In addition to Cha Junhuan, South Korea's Kim Chae-ran defeated Japan's Hanori Sakamoto to win the gold medal in women's singles skating at this year's Asian Winter Games, allowing South Korea to win the gold medals in men's and women's figure skating. Three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto, like Kagiyama, made a number of mistakes, including a fall on the triple axel and a landing error on the triple hook jump, which resulted in a free skate score of 136.87, nearly 20 points short of her personal best, and her final total score of 211.9 was lost to Kim Chae-ran, who scored 219.44 points, and won the silver medal. After Kim Chae-ran was sealed, South Korea also won the women's figure skating gold medal after the last (2017) Asian Winter Games was sealed by Choi Do-bin.

Japan's ice queen Hanori Sakamoto made a lot of mistakes and lost the gold medal

Kaori Sakamoto admits that she was not focused enough in the second half of the free skate and thinks she is not in good shape, "I have to adjust well for the World Championships and hope that I will not regret it." I know what went wrong, and I don't blame myself too much, but I deal with it with a positive attitude. I didn't do well in training either, so I wasn't confident enough when I was competing. ”

Although Kim was a bronze medallist at last year's World Championships, she was surprised to win gold, "She (Hanori Sakamoto) is a very good player, I didn't expect to surpass her in points, but of course, I also want to win, and it is a high honor and a lot to me to beat her on the stage of the Asian Games." ”