Figure skating future Seo Min-gyu won another gold medal in the fifth round of the Junior Grand Prix… He's the first man to make it to the finals for two consecutive seasons
Sep 26, 2025
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Seo Min-gyu won the fifth ISU Figure Skating Junior Grand Prix in the 2025-2026 season at the Heidar Aliyev Sports Complex in Baku, Azerbaijan, on the 26th (Korea time). He scored 153.78 points in the free skate, including 78.79 points in the technical score (TES), 75.99 points in the art score (PCS), and 1.00 points in the deduction. He achieved his personal highest score with a total score of 236.45 points, including 82.67 points for the short program. He beat Belgium's Denis Kruglov (213.47 points) by a wide margin to win the gold medal.
Min Soo-gyu, who has been on the Junior Grand Prix stage since the 2022-2023 season, won his fourth career championship. Following the second competition last month, he won the fifth competition and secured another Grand Prix Final ticket following last season.
The start was unsettling. In the first task, quadruple salco, Seo Min-kyu fell heavily on his hip, hit the fence, and started acting by losing 3.88 points in his performance score (GOE). Fortunately, he later increased his concentration and handled all the tasks without making mistakes.
The triple axel-triple toe loop combination jump that followed immediately ran neatly, and the triple flip-double toe loop also landed stably. After completing the first half of the jump task with a triple loop, Min-gyu received a level 4 in the flying camel spin, raising the level of completion.
Seo Min-kyu, who filled the details with Correo sequences, ran a triple axel perfectly in the second half of the jump task with an additional 10% point, and the triple flip-double axel-double axel sequence jump was also close to perfect.
After completing all the jump tasks with triple salco, Min-gyu finished the performance by performing the change foot combination spin and the change seat spin (level 4 above) with the highest difficulty.
Seo Min-gyu tilted his head as to whether he was deeply disappointed in his first jump, and also wrapped his head around his head with both hands. Still, after checking the score and ranking, he regained his bright expression.
Seo Min-gyu is the next generation star who won the Junior World Championship last year and won a silver medal in the same competition in March this year. However, due to the age limit, he will not be able to participate in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina D'Ampezzo.
Meanwhile, Shin Ji-ah (Sehwa Girls' High School), who made her senior debut this season, topped the ISU Challenger Series Nebelhorn Trophy Short Program with 40.62 TES, 33.85 PCS, and a total of 74.47 points. This is Shin Ji-ah's personal best short program. She aims to win her first senior championship in free skating on the 27th.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
