CHONGQING, China (AP) — Adam Siao Him Fa of France upstaged two-time defending world champion Shoma Uno of Japan with a dazzling free skate on Saturday to win the gold medal in the men’s event at the Cup of China.
Siao Him Fa, last week’s winner at his home Grand Prix in France, landed four quadruple jumps to just two for Uno to erase a 14-point deficit from the short program.
The European champion, who was second after the short program, opened his free skate with a quad lutz and followed with a quad toe-loop, triple toe-loop combination.
Later in his routine, Siao Him Fa landed a quad toe-loop and a quad salchow to finish with a season-best 207.17 points in the free skate for a total of 298.38.
With his second straight win, Siao Him Fa qualified for the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final on December 7-10 in Beijing.
First after the short program, Uno fell on his opening quad toe-loop and then could only manage a double flip on a planned quad flip. He recovered later with a two quad toe-loops but the damage was done.
He finished with 174.73 points in his free skate for a total of 279.98. Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan held on to third place with a clean free skate that featured three quad jumps and finished with 264.46 points.
The Cup of China is the fourth of six events of the Grand Prix Series where skaters compete and collect points to qualify for the Grand Prix final.
Japan’s Hana Yoshida came from third place after the short program to win the women’s competition for her first career Grand Prix title.
The 18-year-old Yoshida stepped out of her opening triple axel but landed all her other jumps to finish with 139.32 points in the free skate for a total of 203.97.
“After my triple axel I was a little bit disappointed,” Yoshida said. “I wanted to land it clean but after that I was able to concentrate on the elements after and forget about the axel. That was good.”
Rinka Watanabe, also of Japan, was second with 203.22 points while world bronze medalist Loena Hendrickx of Belgium, first after the short program, dropped down to third.