Jaekeun LEE 이재근 (KOR) | Junior Men Free Skating | Wuxi 2024
And now to Jae-Kun Lee.
His coach, Hyung-Kyung Choi, ringside,
had explained to me when I saw her
that he can land quad toe,
but because she's been traveling the globe
with the various different events,
she doesn't know how it's been going as well in practice.
So it remains to be seen as to whether or not
he'll include that difficulty,
but instead, whether he will play it relatively safe
to try to secure his second medal
on this season's Junior Grand Prix.
Jae-Kun Lee makes his way to center ice
to take his bow,
and I debated the merits of whether or not
he would include the quadruple toe loop.
I explained that his coach knows
that he's landing it in practice,
but that debate of increased difficulty,
the risk versus reward,
on this occasion, unlikely to pay off.
Tonga Tian leads the field,
and he didn't have triple axel.
We've seen the likes of Patrick Blackwell use quads.
We've seen John Kim use quads,
and Jae-Kun Lee attempted, or was going for it,
but on this occasion, a cleaner skate
and likely to ruin the day as Tonga Tian needs,
we'll see now.
Yeah, and he popped the triple axel to a double,
and he popped the second triple axel to a single,
so that's just too costly.
I don't think he's gonna be able to make it,
but let's take a look.
Here's the pop quad toe into a double,
and you can tell he just wasn't comfortable.
There's the pop triple axel into,
oh, no, I guess it was a triple axel,
and it was on the quarter,
and there's the triple lutz, triple toe loop.
Nice.
Makes that a little bit later in the program.
That's good.
Another triple lutz, double axel, double axel.
Well, he's fighting for every point.
Hmm.
There's that change of edge, really fast sit spin,
and the change combo spin,
but you can see his eyes
right at the end of that program.
He knew it.
He'd given away too much.
Well, he has 146.48 as his personal best,
and he's gonna fall quite short of that.
He would need a 134 to take the lead,
and that's simply not going to happen,
I don't believe, on this day.
Too many mistakes.
It's confirmation, again, that the progress isn't linear.
It's not direct.
He's had a personal best in the short program here,
but not in the free skate.
That's correct, yeah.
There it is, 127.37.
That is fourth in the free program
for Jaekun Lee from Korea,
and with a 201.45,
that puts him currently in the second place
with two skaters to come,
assuming that they have enough points
to push him off the podium
and give a bronze medal, at least,
to the Chinese skater, Dongge Tian.