Cha Jun-hwan in 2nd place after short program in men’s figure skating at Winter Asiad

Cha Jun-hwan placed second in the short program of the men’s singles figure skating in his Asian Winter Games debut in China on Tuesday.

Cha, the 2023 world silver medalist, scored his season-best 94.09 points to rank behind Yuma Kagiyama of Japan (103.81) at Heilongjiang Ice Events Training Center Multifunctional Hall in Harbin.

Dai Daiwei of China ranked third with 82.89 points.

The free skate is scheduled for Thursday.

Cha was the last among 16 skaters to take the ice Tuesday, right after Shun Sato, the 2024 Four Continents silver medalist, fell a couple of times and scored a disappointing 70.02 points.

Performing to “Natural” by Imagine Dragons, Cha opened with a clean quadruple salchow. He also executed a strong triple lutz-triple loop combination.

After a strong flying sit spin, Cha was wobbly in his landing of his third and final jump element, triple axel, though he managed to stay on his feet.

Cha closed with a series of spins and steps, and ended up topping 90 points in the short program for the third time in his seven appearances this season.

Kagiyama, the 2022 Olympic silver medalist who has also won three silver medals at world championships, is going for his first Asiad title. He surpassed the century mark in his short program for the fourth time this season.

The second South Korean in the field, Kim Hyun-gyeom, scored 58.22 points to rank 10th.

Ro Yong-myong of North Korea ranked sixth with 68.51 points.