Taiga NISHINO (JPN) | Junior Men Short Program | Gdansk 2025

Our next skater represents Japan. Taiga Nishino. And Taiga comes into this event as one of the favourites. The current leader, Haben Chui, was second to him in Varese. Can Taiga Nishino do it again? And lead the field with this, his short program, to Michael Bublé track section. but that was a lot of fun. That was wonderful, and we've seen other skaters that we've given excuses for, to be competing at this late stage in the day, but this skater, Taiga Nishino, in a different continent from that which he trains, will have the jet lag that perhaps others are suffering too, but his preparation must have been so good that he has delivered. They are prepared beyond belief when they come here. They get onto the ice on their practice day, before the official practice day, they run a program. It doesn't matter. They just run the program. They make it normal to run a program no matter when and no matter where. And that makes a difference because it's total confidence and comfort when they step on the ice to compete. So, that was outstanding. Taiga Nishino from Japan. He's got mid-7s for the program components. And, you know, when you can think of the presentation, there were so many times when Taiga Nishino was really evidently selling to the judges to secure that kind of score. Look at the step that turns into the triple flip. Had a problem a little bit on the landing, but then he whipped it right up into the triple toe loop. No problem. Triple loop. Change of edge. Good soft knees. Upper body movement. Deep edges and turns. Twizzle in the opposite direction. Opposite for his normal rotation direction. Interesting, Ted, because initially looking at the inputs from the technical panel, when the triple flip-triple toe loop combination was called cleanly, then Taiga was pushing an 80-point marker. Now that that's got the cue mark and forced the judges to reduce the grade of execution, he's narrowed it up to make it much closer. What I must give is a shout-out to Misato, the coach and choreographer. And I think, you know, when you're a coach that can create great skaters, but also choreograph for them as brilliantly as this was, well, you deserve a shout-out. You know, you can choreograph brilliantly. It has to be Taiga. He does. 78.81. That is first in the short program. Seasons best. He hasn't discovered it yet. He's going... Not totally surprised. But it's close. 78.81, 78.53. Wow, that's going to be a battle.