Lee Hae-in of South Korea performs her short program during the women’s singles figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan, Feb. 17. Yonhap
MILAN — Lee Hae-in found herself just inside the top 10 after the short program in the women’s singles figure skating event at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics on Tuesday.
Lee scored her season-best 70.07 points at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan to finish ninth in the short program.
Lee opened her program, set to “Sirens” by Christopher Tin, with a triple lutz-triple toe loop combination. Though she appeared to land both jumps well, Lee was called for an under-rotation of her landing of the triple toe loop. She later landed her double axel and triple flip cleanly and received the maximum levels on all of her spins and step sequence.
Lee had 37.61 points in the technical element score (TES), which evaluates skaters’ technical proficiency, and 32.46 points in the program component score (PCS), which looks at skaters’ artistry and choreography.
The one other South Korean in action, Shin Ji-a, earned 65.66 points, nearly nine points off her season best, to rank 14th.
Shin fell trying to land the second jump of her triple lutz-triple toe loop combination. Shin recovered and had a mostly clean program the rest of the way, though she received Level 3, one below maximum, with her layback spin at the end.
She had 35.79 points in the TES and 30.87 in the PCS.
Ami Nakai of Japan led the short program with 78.71 points, followed by her countrywoman, Kaori Sakamoto, with 77.23 points. Alysa Liu of the United States is in third place with 76.59 points.
The free skate is set for Thursday.
