On Friday, Yuzuru Hanyu made his highly anticipated season’s debut and earned a massive score as he leads Japan’s strong men’s field after the short program at the Japanese Championships.
The five-time national champion opened his routine with a quad Salchow, which received an additional 4.57 grade of execution points, and later completed a quad toe loop-triple toe loop combination and a triple axel. Hanyu was given level four ratings for all of his spins and his step sequence, and earned multiple ten-point marks for the performance, composition, as well as interpretation of music in the program component evaluation.
A two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time World champion, Hanyu earned a short program score of 111.31 points – 0.51 points shy of his own official world record – and leads second place by almost ten points. He has mention that he may attempt a quad axel in Sunday’s free skate event – which has never been completed to date.
Four-time Japanese national champion Shoma Uno kicked off his short program performance with a quad flip and later landed a quad toe loop-double toe loop combination as well as a triple axel. The 2018 Olympic silver medalist received a score of 101.88 points for the presentation and is currently in second place – Uno is ahead of the bronze medal position by over six points.
2021 World silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama has been third at the national championships for the last two consecutive years and finds himself in a similar situation after today’s short program. The 18-year-old figure skater – nine years younger than Hanyu and six years younger than Uno – landed his performance opening quad Salchow-triple toe loop combination, fell on his subsequent quad toe loop attempt, but completed a triple axel. Kagiyama received a score of 95.15 points.
Results after short program:
- Yuzuru Hanyu – 111.31
- Shoma Uno – 101.88
- Yuma Kagiyama – 95.15
- Sota Yamamoto – 93.79
- Kao Miura – 92.81
- Sena Miyake – 90.52
- Kazuki Tomono – 87.79
- Shun Sato – 87.27
- Koshiro Shimada – 86.76
- Keiji Tanaka – 84.10
- Lucas Tsuyoshi Honda – 78.53
- Tatsuya Tsuboi – 77.31
- Sumitada Moriguchi – 76.14
- Nozomu Yoshioka – 72.94
- Kazuki Kushida – 72.37
- Takeru Kataise – 69.32
- Mitsuki Sumoto – 68.55
- Kosho Oshima – 65.86
- Takumi Sugiyama – 65.34
- Reo Ishizuka – 57.06
- Kazuki Hasegawa – 56.86
- Taichiro Yamakuma – 55.11
- Gakuto Suzuki – 55.00
- Rei Suzuki – 53.45
Did not qualify for free skate:
- Shunsuke Nakamura – 52.78
- Takaya Tsujimura – 50.03
- Tatuma Furuya – 46.59
- Yuga Furusho – 45.99
- Yuto Kishina – 45.92
- Kimichika Wada – 42.34
- Koutaro Hayakawa – 38.52
- Yoshimasa Hori – 35.83
Pairs; results after short program:
- Miyu Yunoki & Shoya Ichihashi – 34.77
The Skating Times 
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