After 10 years of competition like the spring and autumn warring states era toward the ‘post Kim Yu-na’, a skater with the modifier ‘first since Kim Yu-na’ has finally appeared.
Lee Hae-in, who won gold and silver medals at the International Skating Union (ISU) Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and the World Championships this year, is the main character.
Lee Hae-in won the silver medal메이저놀이터 with a total score of 220.94 points combined with the short program on the 22nd through the women’s single free skating at the 2023 ISU Figure Skating World Championships held at Super Arena in Saitama, Japan on the 24th.
Until now, no Korean figure skater has won medals at the world championships, which boast the world’s highest authority, except for the Olympics, except for Yuna Kim, who won two gold medals, two silver medals, and two bronze medals each. Even Kim Yuna, she has been 10 years since her most recent standing was the 2013 World Championship gold medal, a year before her retirement.
Lee Hae-in, who has grown significantly over the past four years, has filled that void. With her ‘post-Kim Yu-na’ modifier, Hae-in Lee is building her own position after several players challenged her.
In addition to the World Championships, Lee Hae-in has established herself as an athlete who announced the rapid growth of Korean women’s figure skating on the international stage by wearing the modifier ‘first since Kim Yu-na’.
Lee Hae-in’s attempt to catch up with Yuna Kim began in earnest in 2019. She won two gold medals in women’s singles at the ISU Junior Grand Prix held in the fall of that year. .
As a skater who has won the Junior Grand Prix women’s singles more than once, she is the third skater after Kim Yu-na and Kim Hae-jin, so her appearance shook the domestic figure skating world.
Challenging the momentum and challenging the senior stage from the following year, he went through twists and turns, but after steadily growing up without losing confidence, he is following in the footsteps of Yuna Kim again in the 2022/23 season.
Lee Hae-in gradually raised her ranking to 10th at the 2021 Senior World Championships and 7th at last year’s Senior World Championships.
Although she suffered the pain of being eliminated from the qualifying round for the Beijing Winter Olympics last year, she climbed to second place at the Four Continents Championships, becoming the third player to win a medal after Yuna Kim (gold medal) in 2009 and You Young (silver medal) in 2020, and last February in Colorado, USA. At the Four Continents Championships held this year, she proudly won the gold medal and vomited her spirit to rise to the top of this event for the first time since Kim Yuna.
And at the World Championships held a month later, she became the first medalist since Kim Yuna once again.
Although Russia, a powerhouse in women’s figure skating, did not participate due to sanctions on the international stage, Lee Hae-in was predicted a tough competition, as Japanese athletes, another powerhouse, performed in the home rink, and Leona Hendricks, a Belgian representative who has recently grown significantly, is still alive.
However, Lee Hae-in did not lose her composure based on her improved physical condition and acting ability from the beginning of this year, and won silver medals in both the short program and free skating with ‘clean performance’.
In particular, Lee Hae-in scored 73.62 points in the short program, falling 5.62 points behind champion Kaori Sakamoto (79.24 points), but in the free skating event, she scored 147.32 points, ahead of Sakamoto (145.37 points). .
Lee Hae-in is considered one of the athletes who most closely resembles Kim Yu-na in terms of her actual expressiveness and technical accuracy, and she is considered to be capable of long runs in future international competitions.
Now, the stage of the modifier ‘first since Kim Yu-na’ that Lee Hae-in dreams of is expected to lead to the Grand Prix Final and the Olympics.
Lee Hae-in was not in good condition at the beginning of this season, so he was unable to win a medal in the Grand Prix series and, of course, did not advance to the finals. Participating in the Grand Prix Final, where only six players from around the world are invited, and winning the first female singles award since Kim Yu-na in 2009 became her new season’s tasks.
In addition, the first prize in 12 years since Kim Yuna, who won the gold medal in 2010 and the silver medal in 2014 at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026, is also increasingly approaching as a goal that Lee Hae-in wants and must achieve.