Jiaxuan ZHANG / Yihang HUANG (CHN) | Junior Pairs Free Skating | Gdansk 2024
Please welcome our final competitors, from China,
Jiaxuan Zhang and Yihang Huang.
Well, the final team, the favourites coming in,
Jiaxuan Zhang and Yihang Huang.
Ted explained that they look solid in practice,
and if they're anywhere near their season's best,
could comfortably take the title.
Jiaxuan Zhang and Yihang Huang, from China,
the favourites coming in,
who are going to take a fairly seismic win, I think,
with this title, and that should secure them
30 points and a trip to Grenoble in France.
And I wonder, it's just going to be a really interesting competition
to compare Zhang and Huang to the current leaders
of the Junior Grand Prix Series, De Rocher and Thrasher,
and the likes of Flores and Huang,
the North Americans, such a different style to the Chinese.
There's the triple twist at the top of the program, level 3,
and the double axel at the top of the program, level 3.
You've seen one of the features,
it's a marquee element for them.
And here's the triple toe loops, that looked okay,
but on the double axel, Yihang does not lift up high enough.
He takes the fall, there's the throw triple flip,
just huge, she does incredible work
to keep that from stepping out.
There's that five reverse lift,
change of position, that's amazing,
level 4 with plus GOE.
1.70.
For an outside desk bar, you don't often see that,
it's a very difficult desk bar,
it's the most difficult of all of them.
And that comes in.
That's beautiful.
We see just the end of their program here.
They're giving you, there you go, you get the heart,
yeah, that's good.
You got the message, you got the ammo.
Yeah, and I think, because you have Zhang and Yihang,
obviously their technical content,
the throw triple flip, the throw triple loop,
the two side-by-side triples,
group 4 lift, the tech score is coming in about mid-50s,
and that's such a huge starting point
for them to be so dominant thus far this season.
Components-wise, it's still got development
and it's still a work in progress
for them to be competitive in seniors,
and they are senior age eligible,
so potentially they could consider
making the jump to seniors as well,
but it would be the components there
that would be needing to be coordinated.
It's not that far off.
It's four points off the technical element score.
Mind you, it wasn't the highest technical elements today.
They made some mistakes,
so there still is separation there,
but you can tell she has a sensitivity too.
She's not completely convincing emotionally yet.
104.08, that is first, clearly first,
in re-parking with a 161.96.
As they take the title and they punch their ticket
to Grenoble in the Junior Grand Prix Final.
Convincing wins in both Riga and here in Gdansk.
Almost a 30-point win.
It's huge.