World Figure Skating Championships mens short program 23.03.2023

ISU World Figure Skating Championships is well underway! Yesterday I did a recap on the ladies event and before they start their free skating I wanna stop on the mens event short program yesterday 23.03.2023.

SO-MUCH-ENTERTAINMENT

Honestly I don’t remember an event more entertaining than mens short yesterday. Kudos to so many guys putting entertaining and high quality programs out there. As a former skater, I know how hard that is! I always loved trying out more electric and fun short programs and well I definitely struggled skating clean.. 😆

My highlights

For me the highlights were Kevin Aymoz ; Keegan Messing; Junhwan Cha; Ilia Malinin; Jason Brown. I could even choose more, but I tried to keep it really to the best in my opinion. All of them were so polished, so interesting, entertaining and just nearly perfect. I’d like to point out Kevins choreography. You don’t see programs that difficult in body movement at all and he looked like he was really in character. Keegan – oh how I’m gonna miss him, when he leaves the competitive sport. There’s really no one like him, always happy, supporting other athletes. He makes skating seem as if he is wearing trick skates (not sure if that exists), but yea his edges are to die for! Did you notice he went into the triple Axel on one foot gliding over the ice? Amazing! And I’m so happy he managed to put out one of the best short programs of his career as his final farewell! I really don’t remember the last time I had this many favourites from only one event, but continuing with Junhwan – another entertaining program. A Michael Jackson medley has been done so many times, but he brought something new to the table and well his jumps. Not the hardest of quads, but done so-so well and I guess the points speak for themselves! Ilia – well no one at this point has jumps as solid as his. I admire that despite his young age, you can really see he works hard on the artistry and difficulty of the movements. The program is entertaining and well made and his confidence really shows. If I had one comment- I just hope for next season he will be able to work with a proper costume designer to have a comfortable and on -character outfit.. 😝 Lastly I want to point out Jason Brown. Surprising that I chose a skater with a slower program, but the way he got into character and time just seemed to have stop during his skate – that’s one of the most special things in figure skating you can experience, and he gave us that on top of very high quality jumps. So thank you Jason Brown.

Other thoughts

There seems to be a trend of men really challenging themselves to create extremely difficult programs in terms of choreography and steps difficulties and I’m all for it! And what’s amazing is that the technical difficulties of programs don’t seem to have suffered. And I think that the audience seems to enjoy that trend just as much as me!

Heading into the free skate

Of course being Estonian, I’m really glad Mihhail Selevko qualified for the free skate despite some errors. I hope he will be confident and believe in himself, because the jumps are all there and his programs are entertaining. I’m also looking forward to seeing Lukas from Switzerland as he did amazing at Euros! I mean there were so many other amazing programs in the short, so I believe it’s gonna be one of the most interesting mens event in a while!

* see the results here

mens short program at world figure skating championships 2023
Mens top 3 at World figure skating champpionships. Shoma Uno – Ilia Malinin – Junhwan Cha.
Photo from Ilia Malinin instagram

Johanna x JIV