Japan's Kagiyama wins men's title at Four Continents, Jin Boyang takes fifth

SHANGHAI - Japan's Olympic runner-up Yuma Kagiyama scored a season's best 307.58 points to win the men's title at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships here on Saturday.

Skating to the music of Rain In Your Black Eyes by Ezio Bosso, 21-year-old Kagiyama nailed a quad salchow, a quad flip and a quad toe triple salchow as well several triple jumps including two triple Axels, earning 200.76 in the free skate.

His teammate Shun Sato took the silver with a total of 274.59 points, while the short program leader, South Korea's Cha Jun-hwan, ranked third with a season's best 272.95.

China's veteran Jin Boyang finished fifth with 256.89. Jin showed good form, landing a quad lutz and a quad toeloop in his opening program, but fell in his following triple Axel triple salchow.

"I was excited when completing my first two quad jumps," he said. "I was too fast in the following jump so there was some mistake in landing the salchow."

"I will make some adjustments to prepare for the National Winter Games and I will train in Canada for two weeks before the World Championships," he added.

Chen Yudong took ninth among the 24 skaters with 218.66.

Earlier on Saturday, Canada's Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps struck gold in the pairs. The duo opened their program with a triple twist and went on to complete a throw triple Salchow and loop, as well as difficult lifts and their trademark forward outside death spiral.

The 2023 ISU Four Continents bronze medalists also landed the side-by-side triple toes, but singled the double Axel. They scored 129.32 in the free skate and totaled 198.80 points to win the title.

Defending champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan settled for silver with an overall score of 190.77, while the United States' Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea were third with 187.28.