PRAGUE — It’s time to say goodbye for Kaori Sakamoto, and he or she’s aiming to exit on a excessive with the world figure skating title.
Sakamoto’s short-program music, “Time to Say Goodbye,” was charged with emotion as she targets a fourth world title earlier than retirement.
Sakamoto shouted with pleasure and clapped as she realized her rating of 79.31, a season-best which put her into first place by lower than a degree from her fellow Japanese skater Mone Chiba on a personal-best 78.45 in her disco-themed program.
There was additional nostalgia for Sakomoto as a result of her final world championships are within the Czech Republic, the place she began her Junior Grand Prix profession 13 years in the past.
“It was a good feeling to have,” she stated of the full-circle second.
There’s a powerful U.S. problem for the medals forward of Friday’s free skate with Amber Glenn third and Isabeau Levito fourth.
Without Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu, who withdrew from the world championships amid a busy media schedule, the main target was on whether or not Sakamoto might regain the title she gained thrice in a row from 2022 by means of 2024, and whether or not three-time U.S. champion Glenn might declare a primary world medal.
Glenn got here to the world championships with an Olympic workforce gold however missed the person medals after a short-program error. She was again on kind Wednesday, beginning with a giant triple axel on her solution to scoring 72.65. Levito was simply behind her with 72.16 for fourth in her return to kind after twelfth at the Olympics.
Ami Nakai’s triple axel propelled her into the Olympic short-program lead – she ended up with bronze – however went lacking Wednesday. The 17-year-old Japanese skater might solely handle an ungainly double as her opening bounce and has a tricky process to recuperate from eighth.
Hase and Volodin lead pairs Olympic pairs bronze medalists Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany are narrowly forward in within the newest installment of a long-running rivalry.
Skating final, the Germans took the lead by 79.78 to 79.45 in opposition to Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia, who beat them to the European title and Olympic silver this season. Canadians Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud are in third on 75.52 forward of Thursday’s free skate.
Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara are skipping the world championships after profitable Japan’s first Olympic pairs title final month.
U.S. champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov could not compete at the Olympics as a result of Efimova wasn’t but a U.S. citizen. A slip by Efimova on a triple toeloop and a heavy touchdown on a throw left them seventh.
