Turin, Italy, November 8, 2021: Japan’s Winter Youth Olympic Games champion Yuma Kagiyama jumped from seventh place to win the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Gran Premio d’Italia in Turin on Saturday, November 6.
The 18-year-old Lausanne 2020 Winter YOG gold medallist stood in seventh place following a faulty short programme but came back strong in the free skate to “Gladiator”, fighting his way to the top of the podium.
The 2021 World silver medalist nailed a quad Salchow, quad toe-triple toe, quad toe, as well as five triple jumps to post a new personal best of 197.49 points and a total of 278.02 points to win his second ISU Grand Prix title following his victory in the NHK Trophy last year in Japan.
“Of course, I just found out that I finished in first place, so I'm very surprised,” Kagiyama said. “Coming into the long programme I didn't even think about being on the podium or getting a good score; I was just planning to do my best.
“After the short programme I couldn't change my mindset and, even this morning, I was feeling low in practice. I didn't know what to do about the situation,” he said.
“My coach said let's forget what we did last year - the position, the record - so I shook it off and thought I'm starting from scratch and I'm doing my best and it helped. It's a good experience for me,” he added.
Cha Junhwan (KOR) dropped from third to fifth after some errors (247.74 points). Kazuki Tomono (JPN) came sixth (245.11) and overnight leader Jin Boyang (CHN) faded to seventh after falling on two jumps and other mistakes.
*The two-time ISU world champions from China, Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, skated off with the pairs gold ahead of teammates Peng Cheng/Jin Yang.