2026 Junior Worlds - Men FS

[Sylvia]

This is the second event on Friday, March 6, 2026.

Time schedule by skater for Friday (18:15-21:45 in Tallinn / 11:15 am-2:45 pm ET): https://results.isu.org/results/sea...JUNIOR----FNL-000100--_StartListwithTimes.pdf

ISU Livestream with Ted Barton & Mark Hanretty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeCoKr11Ivc

Junior Men FS Starting order/Live results: https://results.isu.org/results/season2526/wjc2026/SEG002.htm

StN. Name Nation

Warm-Up Group 1
1 Leon ROJKOV GER 24 60.68
2 Albin SAMUELSSON SWE 23 60.93
3 Qihan ZHAO CHN 22 61.55
4 Konstantin SUPATASHVILI GEO 21 61.62
5 Hiro KAEWTATHIP THA 20 61.93
6 Jiarui LI HKG 19 62.38

Warm-Up Group 2
7 Matvii YEFYMENKO POL 18 62.89
8 Genrikh GARTUNG GER 17 63.67
9 Matias LINDFORS FIN 16 66.70
10 Nikita SHEIKO ISR 15 67.12
11 David BONDAR CAN 14 69.09
12 Yehor KURTSEV UKR 13 70.05

Ice Resurfacing

Warm-Up Group 3
13 Yu-Hsiang LI TPE 12 71.06
14 Lucius KAZANECKI USA 11 74.89
15 Denis KROUGLOV BEL 10 75.22
16 Habin CHOI KOR 9 75.78
17 Ean WEILER SUI 8 76.77
18 Yanhao LI NZL 7 77.18

Warm-Up Group 4
19 Jaekeun LEE KOR 6 79.27
20 Jacob SANCHEZ USA 5 81.03
21 Taiga NISHINO JPN 4 81.14
22 Daiya EBIHARA JPN 3 81.53
23 Minkyu SEO KOR 2 86.33
24 Rio NAKATA JPN 1 89.51

 

[Wyliefan]

Mark & Ted need to learn to avoid generalizations. "All" the skaters and their teams are great people, "all" the skaters are friendly with each other. I know these are long, hard days of work, and they probably scramble for things to say, so maybe I'm being too harsh, but we know it's not true, so it just sounds bad.

 

[her grace]

Mark & Ted need to learn to avoid generalizations. "All" the skaters and their teams are great people, "all" the skaters are friendly with each other. I know these are long, hard days of work, and they probably scramble for things to say, so maybe I'm being too harsh, but we know it's not true, so it just sounds bad.

Yeah, they definitely come across as overselling at times. Especially when they chide us not to disagree with callers and judges. Watch me continue to have my own informed opinions!

 

[tony]

Ted already getting snarky with Mark. We are in for a long day

 

[kwanfan1818]

Ted thinks he’s funny.

 

[Elisheba]

This is rough for Samuelsson

 

[tony]

Anna Rechnio chroeographed this? I was about to type out a whole thing about how this is the first music I haven't heard in skating in a long, long time that I quite liked.

 

[Elisheba]

I was about to type out a whole thing about how this is the first music I haven't heard in skating in a long, long time that I quite liked.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled Muse.

 

[Karen-W]

Just a reminder about the allocation of JGP entries for next season:

2.1 Men and Women
ISU Members are entitled to enter Competitors in the different events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Men and Women according to the following system (see annexed Tables A and B):

a) 2 entries in 7 events:
ISU Members placed one (1) to three (3) at the previous ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships may enter two (2) Skaters in all seven (7) events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in the category concerned.

b) 1 entry in 7 events:
ISU Members placed four (4) to six (6) at the previous ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships are entitled to enter one (1) Skater in seven (7) events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in the category concerned.

c) 1 entry in 6 events:
ISU Members placed seven (7) to ten (10) at the previous ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships are entitled to enter one (1) Skater in six (6) events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in the category concerned.

d) 1 entry in 5 events:
ISU Members with Skaters, who qualified for the Final Free Skating, but were not placed in the first ten (10) ISU Members of the previous ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships, may enter one (1) Skater in five (5) events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in the category concerned.

e) 1 entry in 4 events:
ISU Members with Skaters, who placed 25 to 30 in the Short Program of the previous ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships, may enter one (1) Skater in four (4) events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in the category concerned. (ITA, LTU, LAT, SVK, AUT, GBR)

f) 1 entry in 3 events:
ISU Members with Skaters, who placed 31 and lower in the Short Program of the previous ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships but participated in the category concerned, may enter one (1)Skater in three (3) events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in the category concerned. (EST, ARM, NOR, CZE, ESP, KAZ, BUL, TUR, FRA, HUN, AUS)

g) 1 entry in 2 events:
ISU Members, who have not participated in the previous ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships in the category concerned, may enter one (1) Skater in two (2) events of the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating in the category concerned.

h) Organizing ISU Member:
The Organizing ISU Member may enter in its event up to three (3) Men and three (3) Women. (CHN, LAT, THA, TUR, GEO, SLO, POL)

 

[Wyliefan]

I was watching the warmup with half an eye, so I'm not sure which skater it was who took a fall and finished it off with "Ta-DA!" arms, but I think it might have been Zhao. Whoever it was, it was adorable.

 

[tony]

I was watching the warmup with half an eye, so I'm not sure which skater it was who took a fall and finished it off with "Ta-DA!" arms, but I think it might have been Zhao. Whoever it was, it was adorable.

It was Jiarui Li

 

[Sylvia]

When Zhao competed in his one JGP in 2024 (Wuxi with Sean Rabbitt) he didn't yet have a 3A. He has since switched part-time(?) to Tammy Gambill (ETA) who used to coach Rabbitt.

 

[Elisheba]

We have 2 Last Airbender freeskates??

 

[crzesk8dad]

When Zhao competed in his one JGP in 2024 (Wuxi with Sean Rabbitt) he didn't yet have a 3A. He has since switched part-time(?) to Tammy Gambill (ETA) who used to coach Rabbitt.

Just to set the record straight, Jayden learned his 3A while training in Irvine. Tammy was an after thought. He was recalled to China by the Chinese Federation. He works with two Chinese coaches and part time with Tammy. He continues to use the programs that were developed in Irvine.

 

[tony]

Kaewtathip was great! And he admires Rino Matsuike.. good taste

 

[Sylvia]

Thanks for the extra info @crzesk8dad - I did know that "Jayden" Zhao learned 3A while still training in Irvine.

Yay, Hiro! ETA: He landed 3A cleanly for the first time in competition in his 2026 Bavarian Open SP - called clean again today!

 

[crzesk8dad]

Response deleted

 

[tony]

Ted is annoying me. He was at the forefront of IJS creation and now he's trying to prioritize the technical side of the sport, when they originally tried to make it (hypothetically) 50-50 with the TES and PCS.

 

[JoannaLouise]

This program for Gartung is very focused on the quads, and not so much on the presentation. But he has shown with his SP this year that he has made some progress at connecting with his music and choreo, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do once he manages to bring that into his LPs.

 

[tony]

I love Matias so much. What a revelation at Europeans. People should be flocking to his sister for choreography because both of these programs are so good. A no-name skater getting up to 3rd place ordinals in PCS at Euros, and I think he finished last in the free skate. Remarkable.

 

[Kateri]

So I actually directly credit Mark Hanretty for the good PCS judging of Lindfors (and Kessler) at Euros, because he spent the entire warmup talking about how amazing their PCS should be, into the judges ears on the in-arena announcer feed.

 

[tony]

So I actually directly credit Mark Hanretty for the good PCS judging of Lindfors (and Kessler) at Euros, because he spent the entire warmup talking about how amazing their PCS should be, into the judges ears on the in-arena announcer feed.

I think Hanretty truly is the driving force behind the Kessler PCS rise, because he's been saying it for a while and then it suddenly went up massively (like pushing 8s).

But that Euros panel, at least quite a few of them, understood finally after 22 years that you can really reward PCS when it's deserved- not phoning in on start order or big jumps.

 

[tony]

Over 70 PCS - I guess the most we can hope for here.

 

[MsZem]

That is one very literal costume on Sheiko.

 

[tony]

That'll be an attempted jump block, and yep it's called.

 

[JoannaLouise]

Eek, he just completely balked at that axel setup

 

[Kateri]

But that Euros panel, at least quite a few of them, understood finally after 22 years that you can really reward PCS when it's deserved- not phoning in on start order or big jumps.

Mark was right there introducing everyone, and priming the audience and telling the judges to their faces that Kessler had some of the best skating skills in the word, and Lindfors was an amazing artist. He basically shamed them into giving good marks.

 

[Wyliefan]

Bondar's music is listed as Games of Thrones, which sounds like the knockoff direct-to-DVD version.

 

[JoannaLouise]

Bondar's triple axels were great, although ironically he struggled with scratchy landings on his easier jumps.

I wasn't paying enough attention to the tracker to see which element was marked invalid just before the end of the program - did anyone else catch it? (ETA: His tech score did go up by several points after review, so whatever it was probably got added back in.)

 

[tony]

I can't read lips all that well but I think Bondar might have said the score was bullshit