Ruiyang ZHANG (CHN) | Women Free Skating | 2025 – Beijing

The next skater will be lifted up with support from thousands of people in the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing. Ruiyang Zhang, 17 years old. She was brilliant in the short program and she has a few points margin above Stefania already. Just 17 years old, Ruiyang Zhang from the host nation of this Skate to Milano Olympic qualifier. It's her first major senior international event and the responsibility and pressure that she must feel with thousands of people eager to support her must be overwhelming. And Mark, that was a class, a master class in how to recover from a mistake, how to get back and focus. She had two mistakes in that program but she did not let them drag on to other elements and she came back fighting. That was a lot of experience gained here and she'll move forward in her career. What a delightful beautiful skater. And just now did the fall on the triple loop and the mistake and the opening looks here you can see. And I have to assume, Ted, looking at the way that that looks panned out, nerves have to play a factor. Oh for sure. This was good though. Beautiful. Look at the sailing off that back inside edge up into the triple toe loop. That was just such a beautiful combination. And that was a beautiful plus GOE, the quality score added to the base value. So now it's down to the judges. How much of a grade of execution do they give that triple flip double toe? This triple flip, how much length and height did the jump have? How much quality takeoff and landing does it showcase? And I think the second half of the program from a PC perspective really saved her because yeah Yekeleva was really strong in that on the PCs. But her PCs here in the sevens, in the low sevens. But right here we can see the work right at the boards. Yeah. I actually really agree with you regarding the program component scores. Initially it felt disconnected, perhaps the mistakes. We lost the presentation. But it came back. Laughter, yes. And the judges, when they come to give the presentation component score, it has to be a percentage of the whole program that they feel. However, they are human. Yeah. You know, if you leave with performance value for the last 50 percent, it's bound to impact upon the input the judges give. Now, Ted, this is just a huge moment for this arena. It is. For this skater. For the country. For the sport. And the federation. Yeah. So what she needs to stay in the top five. One one four point seven seven. Yeah. Yes. One sixty point nine eight. That is third in the free skate with a total competition score one hundred and seventy nine point seven six. She will make it. This audience knows. Yeah. They're cheating. She did it. She didn't know after the first score. The audience did. They knew. They knew.