Jiarui LI (HKG) | Junior Men Free Skating | Wuxi 2024

This young man, he's talented. Yes, yeah, exactly. Jiayu Li, representing Hong Kong, could be a standout star in the short program. Fifth place there, doesn't have the technical difficulty of some of the other skaters, but showcases a very all-rounded package. And just taking the time now to work his rotational position in the backspin before he moves to start position skating to dream by Dmitry Emelianov. Jiayu Li from Hong Kong finds himself in the top group in his first Junior Grand Prix and, as I say, justifies his place here with a brilliant short program that showcased a real good comparison between his tech score and his program component scores. Now, as we saw with Patrick Blackwell, perhaps it's being in this top group and it changes the perspective and the mental aspiration of the competitor. Because just before he started, he looked really pumped and anxious and nervous and maybe that made the way for the mistakes. Yeah, this young man is very lucky to have this experience right now. He's just 13 years of age, so he's in the final group. We see the triple lutz, triple toe loop a little bit back on the heel and that's a step out. But he's getting the experience of the pressure because skating in practice and skating in the, you know, second to last group and third to last group is one thing. In the final group it's completely different. So now he knows his feeling. He's got a long career. His basics are excellent as we see him tight in the air. Well, not in these two jumps. Pop these in singles. But his technique is very good. As you see the triple flip, he's got good posture. He covers the ice well. He's still a young boy, so he doesn't have the power and the speed yet. But once he gets that, watch out because the rest has already been built. And, you know, we reference often the ages of the women's competitors and how long they will stay in the junior ranks now because the age entry into seniors is 17. But that will now be something that we can look forward to seeing happen for Jiaru Yuli. His ability to showcase to us his progression as a junior over the coming seasons. And so it will be interesting from this very quality starting point where he and his coaching team Chen Wang will take it. Yeah, let's take a look at the scores. 118.65 and that's fourth in the free program for this young man with a 182.99 and that'll put him currently into third place with four skaters to come.