Shoma Uno leads Men’s Short Program at NH Trophy 2021 in Tokyo

The ranking ends with a podium that sees the first three positions with a great advantage over the following ones. In fact the fourth leads the third classified by 5 points.

Shoma Uno ranks first with a score of 102.58, Vincent Zhou follows in second position and gets 99.51 points and Junhwan Cha ranks third with 95.92 points.

Worthy of note even if under 90 points were Matteo Rizzo who unfortunately paid the price of a missed combination and Makar Ignatov from Russia, who included in his a program a difficult quad rittberger. As for Kao Miura (classified in 8 position with points 76.62), he presented a well-known music which usually works very well on ice.

Kao opened with a quad salcow excellently performed, a program exhibited without any mistake and enriched by a triple axel of high level. Unfortunatley he did not land well the quad toe loop. His fellow countryman Sota Jamamoto, who got 86.05 points and which is considered a very competitive athlete with a very appreciable choreography, enriched his program with a quad salcow performed beautifully.

With Japanese origin but competing for the United States, Tomoki Hiwatashi missed the quad toeloop, however compensated with an excellent quad salcow and a good triple axel. He obtained 72.36. Again for the US, Camden Pulkinen, who unfortunately closed with a score of only 55.53, falling on the triple axel and failing the quad toeloop. Makar Ignatov for Russia, a very good athlete boasting a quad rittberger in his program, ended with an excellent score of 90.54 points, recording his personal best score, achieved also thanks to an excellent triple axel. Vincent Zhou, competing for the United States, presented an excellent, jumped high quad lutz, but paid for the non-perfect rotation in the axel jump (99.51 points).

Canadian Nam Nguyen who skated on the “Swan Lake” music, is certainly a great skater who however could do more. He failed the first combination and showed some difficulty on the triple axel (64.28 point). The Korean Junhwan Cha skated everything perfectly, the quad salcow was excellent and the combination with the triple rittberger was performed very well. This triple jump in a combination is considered very difficult and risky in competition but the athlete “brought it home” without any problems (Points 95.92). The second Russian in competition is Alexander Samarin did not land the quad lutz well and had some problems with the triple axel. Samarin earned 84.32 points, ranking 7.

The tenth in the competition was the Japanese Shoma Uno, who presented a 100-point program which he performed perfectly, although in the combination the quadruple jump was followed by a double toeloop. Shoma Uno showed great ability and safety in all jumps, which also confirmed by the superb quad flip. He does not miss the opportunity of the triple axel which he performed with excellent quality, as well as all the elements of his program. He gained 102.58 points, which moved him to the first position in the Short Program Results. The last athlete in the competition was the Italian Matteo Rizzo, a more and more mature athlete who skated in a light, delicate and confident way. He opened very well with the quad teoloop but unfortunately losed the second combination, the 3L + 2 toeloop.  His interpretation was excellent and brought much energy on ice with the music by the famous Italian rock group Maneskin, which the public appreciated much. His triple axel was as good as his whole elaborate step sequence and his program was worth 90 points. Unfortunately the mistake in the combination jeopardised the final result, obtaining only 84.78 points. Matteo Rizzo temporarily ranks sixth after short program but the game is still on and tomorrow the results of the free program could see Rizzo among the eligible candidates for the podium.