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Former teen star Kao Miura won his first Grand Prix title in three years by beating the Olympic gold medalist, Olympic bronze medalist and the highest-scoring man this figure skating season.
Miura, a 21-year-old from Japan, topped both Friday’s short program and Sunday’s free skate at Cup of China, the third of six regular season events on figure skating’s top-level Grand Prix Series.
He totaled 293.25 points — the best score this Grand Prix season — with two quadruple jumps in his short and three in his “Jekyll & Hyde” free skate.
“It may be the most important day during my first skating competition, all of the career,” Miura said through a translator.
Miura prevailed by 10.81 points over Vladislav Dikidzhi from Russia, who owns the world’s best score this season (312.79) from a lower-level event in October.
Yevgeny Semenenko from Russia, who came into Cup of China with the world’s second-best score this season, placed third. He was followed by Olympic bronze medalist Shun Sato from Japan and Olympic gold medalist Mikhail Shaidorov from Kazakhstan.
Dikidzhi, Semenenko, Sato and Shaidorov all had at least one jumping error in the free skate.
Miura opened the Grand Prix season by placing ninth in the short program in the first of his two starts at Grand Prix France. He rebounded to place second in the free skate and second overall, at the time his best Grand Prix finish since 2023.
Miura finished first or second in all four of his Grand Prix regular season starts in 2022 and 2023, but dropped back since. He was 13th at the Milan Cortina Olympics and 25th at the last March’s World Championships.
While Miura clinched a spot in December’s Grand Prix Final for the first time in three years, Shaidorov will miss the biggest competition of the fall after placing 10th in his other Grand Prix start in France.
It’s the first time an Olympic gold medalist who chose to compete in the next season’s Grand Prix Series will have not qualified for the Final in the series’ three-decade history. Granted, most Olympic gold medalists skip the following season’s series.
The figure skating season continues this week with Saatva Skate America, live from Friday through Sunday on NBC Sports and Peacock. A broadcast schedule is here.