Tatsuya TSUBOI (JPN) | Men Free Skating | ISU World Championships | Boston 2025 | #FigureSkating

He represents Japan. A warm welcome please, Tsuya Tsuboi. Well, the nerves got the better of him yesterday. Or a couple of days ago, should I say. Let's hope they don't today. We wish him all the very best. It's not easy to be the first one to skate. He goes out lying in 24th place. This is Tatsuya Tsuboi for Japan. Nice triple salchow. That should settle him down nicely. Triple axel. Triple axel, Euler, triple salchow. Well, he really is off to the races now. Triple lutz, triple toe. And there's the loop. Well, that really was a courageous skate. Yeah, I've got to tell you. Tatsuya, by his own admission, has really been struggling since he's been here. Couldn't get the rhythm going. Not been able to get the quad salchow going. And you could see that. And to have a fall like he did at the beginning of the program and then come back as strong as that is very commendable. Particularly in your first world championships. He's redeemed himself well, Tatsuya Tsuboi. Absolutely. And Tatsuya was third at Japanese nationals, which ultimately led to his selection for this world championships. And the depth in Japanese skating in the women's and the men's event is so vast. They have so many amazing athletes in Japan. And unfortunately here for Tatsuya, as you said, he had a really hard time getting that quad salchow going. He wanted to do two today. When he fell on the first one, he elected to just triple the second. I think that was a good choice. After that, though, did some amazing elements. Here looking at his first triple axel. Really nicely done. And the second, this is the triple axel, Euler, triple salchow. And he's earned almost 14 points for that element. Here the triple lutz. It is being awarded an exclamation mark. So the technical panel is telling him they think he might be getting pretty close to that wrong edge. So he has a slightly less GOE than he would have earned had he not gotten that exclamation point. Well, his season's best score is 166.5 for the free. He got that in the NHK trophy, where he finished in third place. It was a really good result for him. In the last season in the NHK, he finished down in ninth place. So to be on the podium, a really good result. So he needed a quad, I think, to get up into the 160s. Maybe two points, to be honest. Of course, he's got that one deduction for the fall. I tell you what, Kirsten, it's going to be a long night. If they take this long to get the marks up, they should have bought sleeping bags. So 143.26. Yes, a bit of a way off his season's best score. But I think, all in all, considering how things have been here, he'll take it.