The Korea Herald

지나쌤

Figure skater Choi Da-bin sets season-best score in Olympic tune-up

By Yonhap

Published : Jan. 26, 2018 - 21:56

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South Korean figure skater Choi Da-in earned her best score of the season at an Olympic tune-up competition on Friday.

Choi earned her season-best 190.23 points overall to finish fourth at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Taipei. She scored 127.93 points in Friday's free skate, good for third in the segment, after ranking fifth after the short program with 62.30 points.

Choi fell just shy of her personal high, 191.11 points, set at last year's world championships

(Yonhap) (Yonhap)



Kaori Sakamoto of Japan finished first with 214.21 points, followed by another Japanese skater, Mai Mihara, with 210.57 points.

Satoko Miyahara completed the Japanese podium sweep by finishing third with 207.02 points.

Choi is one of two South Koreans representing the host country in the ladies' singles at next month's PyeongChang Winter Olympics, alongside Kim Ha-nul. Kim ranked sixth overall with a new personal best of 173.10 points.

This was the final event for both before the Feb. 9-25 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Choi has been struggling with nagging foot problems, caused by loose skate boots, but bounced back nicely with an encouraging performance.

Skating to the soundtrack to the film "Doctor Zhivago," Choi nailed her first jump element, a triple lutz-triple toe loop combination. She followed that up with a clean triple flip and then a double axel-triple toe loop combination.

She remained mostly flawless the rest of the program and pumped her right fist in celebration at the end.