Kagiyama Yuma puts himself on track for back-to-back wins with a dominant short program

Tomono was Kagiyama’s closest challenger and saved a quadruple Salchow to finish second with 90.78 points. Tomono was also in medal contention after the short program at the Grand Prix de France two weeks earlier, but dropped to fifth place after the free skate and hopes to bounce back from that in Finland.

“This morning my fitness was very good, but during the six-minute warm-up I was a bit nervous,” Tomono admitted. “I think I had a very good performance and I will try to do better in the free skate.”

The Finlandia Trophy also saw the return of Kevin Aymoz after finishing second at Skate America. The French skater, who is making a comeback this fall after ending his 2023/24 season early, recorded another confidence-boosting result when he finished third in the short program.

While Aymoz fell to the last Lutz of the program – and also reduced it to a single, invalidating the entire element – his solid quadruple toeloop-triple toeloop and triple Axel put him on the podium with 85.13 points.

Grand Prix Final Qualification in the balance for skaters

The 2024 Finlandia Trophy serves as the fifth stop of six ISU Grand Prix figure skating competitions for the 2024/25 season, with qualifying points available to skaters hoping to reach the December level. Grand Prix Final in Grenoble, France.

And that’s clearly weighing on the minds of many skaters, including Aymoz and two other men who finished on the podium in their first Grand Prix assignments of the season, but finished sixth and seventh respectively on Friday after unfortunate mistakes: Daniel Grassl from Italy, who finished second to Kagiyama at the NHK Trophy last week, but fell on his combination in Helsinki and could not complete it; And Cha Junhwanthe skater from the Republic of Korea who finished third at Skate Canada International but fell on his opening quad Salchow and under-turned a triple loop on Friday.

In the mixed zone immediately after his skate, a reflective Cha said of his 77.33, which puts him in the opening group for the free skate: “I think I did my best. It wasn’t good today. I really love this. program, but those errors… I have to keep working on them, making it cleaner and delivering better quality.”

For his part, Aymoz said the fact that the Grand Prix Final is taking place in Grenoble, his hometown, is propelling him to these unexpected heights this year.

“To be honest, the final was not the goal for me this season, after my slump last season I tackled this pre-Olympic season as slowly and coolly as possible, (until) I found out that the final is taking place in my hometown of Grenoble – on the ice rink, I took my first step ever on the ice. So it’s something big and I really want to participate in this event.”

That means, in his own words, that a ‘stressful’ free skate awaits tomorrow, ‘because we are playing for a Finals spot.

“Tomorrow I just want to fight because Skate America was such a good event for me – I went relaxed and without stress, so I’m going to try to do the same and not leave any crumbs for anyone, get every point I can and enjoy it again to skate.”