Shoma Uno retains World title in tense World Championships figure skating final!

Shoma Uno was mesmerising as he fought hard to retain his World title for the second year in a row at the World Figure Skating Championships 2023 in Saitama, Japan. It was almost a clean sweep for the Japanese as they took gold in three of the four events at the Saitama Super Arena, with Kaori Sakamoto taking gold in the Women’s event and Miura & Kihara sealing victory in Pairs.

THE FINAL PODIUM PLACES:

Place	Skater Name	Country	Short Program	Free Skate	Total Score
1.	Shoma Uno / 宇野 昌磨	Japan	SB 104.63	196.51	301.14
2.	Jun-Hwan Cha / 차준환	South Korea	PB 99.64	PB 196.39	PB 296.03
3.	Ilia Malinin	USA	PB 100.38	188.06	PB 288.44

The Men’s Free Skate was filled with highs, lows and some controversial moments. The final group of skaters put on amazing performances, the top 3 being the absolute standouts, with honourable mentions going to Kevin Aymoz of France, who was simply electric, and Kazuki Tomono of Japan who appeared to receive some harsh scoring. Although, there were several incidents of questionable scoring, which we’ll cover in another post.

It was great to see Deniss Vasiljevs of Latvia following the advice of his coach, Stéphane Lambiel, by attempting some quad jumps. He attempted the quad Salchow in both the Short and the Free programs and while they received negative GOE it’s clear that Ultra C jumps are well within his capabilities. Hopefully, with a little more practice, we’ll see Deniss landing quads at future competitions.

Morisi Kvitelashvili, representing Georgia, also showed great signs of improvement after his difficult move to Italy. The presence of his Russian coaches, Eteri Tutberidze, Daniil Gleikhengauz & Sergei Dudakov seemed to give him a much needed boost and brought out the best in him, and we got to see a bit more of the entertaining Morisi we love! He successfully landed a 4S+3T combination in the Free skate with a score of 14.87 points, so things are looking more positive.

Daniel Grassl, of Italy, finished 12th with 244.43 points and seemed to be much more settled with his new Russian coaching team. He displayed more confident performances, an impressive feat considering the amount of harsh criticism he has received online and in the press for his move to train in Russia. Hopefully Daniel can continue to ignore the noise and keep improving under one of the best coaching teams in the world.

TOP 15 – Final Results (Combined)

Place	Skater Name	Country	Short Program	Free Skate	Total Score
1.	Shoma Uno / 宇野 昌磨	Japan	SB 104.63	196.51	301.14
2.	Jun-Hwan Cha / 차준환	South Korea	PB 99.64	PB 196.39	PB 296.03
3.	Ilia Malinin	USA	PB 100.38	188.06	PB 288.44
4.	Kevin Aymoz	France	SB 95.56	PB 187.41	PB 282.97
5.	Jason Brown	USA	SB 94.17	PB 185.87	SB 280.04
6.	Kazuki Tomono	Japan	SB 92.68	PB 180.73	PB 273.41
7.	Keegan Messing	Canada	PB 98.75	166.41	265.16
8.	Lukas Britschgi	Switzerland	86.18	PB 171.16	PB 257.34
9.	Matteo Rizzo	Italy	79.28	PB 176.76	PB 257.34
10.	Adam Siao Him Fa	France	79.78	173.33	253.11
11.	Vladimir Litvintsev	Azerbaijan	SB 82.71	PB 169.05	PB 251.76
12.	Daniel Grassl	Italy	86.50	157.93	244.43
13.	Deniss Vasiljevs	Latvia	82.37	160.78	243.15
14.	Mikhail Shaidorov	Kazakhstan	SB 75.41	161.52	236.93
15.	Sota Yamamoto	Japan	75.48	156.91	232.39