Shimada Mao wins women's title at ISU Junior Grand Prix in Gdansk
The 13-year-old, named for skating great Mao Asada, landed a clean triple axel en route to the gold medal in Poland
Figure Skating
Japan's Shimada Mao won the women's title Friday (30 September) at figure skating's ISU Junior Grand Prix in Gdansk, Poland. Shimada's teammate, Chiba Mone, took the silver medal, while Korea's Kim Chaeyeon was third.
Chaeyeon was first of the top three from Thursday's short program to perform, and she laid down a solid skate that included seven triple jumps to set the tone for the final competitors. She opened with a clean triple Lutz, triple toe combination, but had to fight through some unsteadiness at the end of the performance to earn a 127.85 and a 195.46 total score.
Pre-event favorite Shimada, the 13-year-old named for Mao Asada, lived up to the hype as she combined technical excellence with grace and performance quality beyond her years. She opened with a clean triple Axel and a quad toe loop, which received a quarter call. The remainder of her program was near flawlessly performed.
Her free skate score was 148.87, a season's best. She finished with 217.68 and well clear of Kim.
Shimada's triumph meant short program winner Chiba needed better than 147.52 to take the gold.
But despite a brilliant performance to Butterfly Lovers, Chiba could not match the technical display of Shimada, earning a technical element score nearly 14 points lower. She posted 135.66 in the free skate, second best in the segment, for a final score of 205.82.
The men's competition continues Saturday (1 October) with the free program set for 12:15pm local. On Thursday (28 September), France's Francois Pitot won the men's short program, ahead of American Joseph Klein and Italy's Raffaele Francesco Zich.
Fans can catch all the action live on the ISU's Junior Grand Prix YouTube channel.