Figure Skating

Rio Nakata Battles Back to Finish 5th at the Winter Youth Olympics

South Korea's Hyungyeom Kim wins the men's gold at the Winter Youth Olympics on home ice. Nakata rallies from 13th place after the short program.

by
Jack Gallagher
January 29, 2024

Two days after his calamitous short program, Rio Nakata rebounded with an energetic free skate on Monday, January 29 to climb from 13th place and finish fifth at the Winter Youth Olympics at Gangneung Ice Arena in South Korea.

The 15-year-old Nakata, who entered the competition as the favorite, was more than 20 points behind leader Jacob Sanchez of the United States after the short program. But Nakata dug deep as the second skater on the ice and posted a score of 142.70 points (second best in the free skate) that gave him a total of 198.29.

South Korea's Hyungyeom Kim vaulted from third after the short program to win the gold with a total of 216.73, edging out Slovakia's Adam Hagara by just half a point. Hagara took the silver with 216.23, while New Zealand's Yanhao Li claimed the bronze at 208.84.

Sanchez tumbled from the lead after a rough free skate and wound up fourth on 200.28, while Haru Kakiuchi was seventh with 185.88.

Home Crowd's Support Energizes Kim

Kim, who came in second behind Nakata at the Junior Grand Prix Final in December 2023, rose to the occasion in front of the partisan home crowd and landed a quadruple toe loop and four clean triples on the way to victory. The 17-year-old from Seoul earned level fours on all of his spins in his skate to "Requiem for a Dream."

"I was very nervous today but I'm happy that I could produce a clean and good free skate," Kim was quoted as saying by Olympics.com.

"It's the first time I'm doing such a big competition in my home country. But I had so many people cheering me on, so I was able to do it well."

Nakata Lands Six Triples in Free Skate at Winter Youth Olympics

Nakata skated to "Blunt Instrument" and "Writing's on the Wall" and put his hand down on his opening quad toe loop. He recovered to landed a nice triple axel/triple toe loop combo and a total of six clean triples while recording level fours on all of his spins.

If Nakata had been able to replicate his epic free skate at the JGP Final, in which he scored a personal best of 160.06, he would have captured the bronze, but it wasn't meant to be.

"I learned a lot through this tournament," Nakata wrote on X (formerly Twitter) after the free skate. "The next tournament is the World Juniors, so I will use the frustration I experienced in this tournament as a springboard and do my best to win the World Juniors!"

Kakiuchi, 17, under-rotated his opening quad toe loop to "Wake Me Up," but did hit six clean triples and notch level fours on all of his spins in a solid performance.

The skating competition will continue with the women's free skate on Tuesday, where Japan's Mao Shimada and Yo Takagi are in first and second place after the short program, and the team event on Wednesday.

Author: Jack Gallagher

The author is a veteran sports journalist and one of the world's foremost figure skating experts. Find articles and podcasts by Jack on his author page, and find him on X (formerly Twitter) @sportsjapan.