Seo Min-kyu won bronze in his senior Grand Prix debut, giving South Korean men’s figure skating a potential successor to Cha Jun-hwan.
Seo scored 161.07 points in the men’s free skate at the opening event of the 2026-27 ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix series at IceParc in Angers, France, on Sunday.
Combined with his short program score of 83.83, Seo finished third with 244.90 points.
France’s Adam Siao Him Fa won with 284.24 points, while Japan’s Kao Miura took silver with 247.96. Seo finished just 3.06 points behind Miura.
Skating to music from the film “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” Seo opened with a clean quadruple Salchow-triple toe loop combination, earning 16.81 points for the element.
He struggled on his next two jumps, turning a planned quadruple Salchow into a double and falling on a triple Axel.
Seo recovered to complete the remainder of his program, including a triple Axel-Euler-triple Salchow-double Axel sequence in the second half. He also cleanly landed a triple loop and triple flip and received Level 4s for his spins and step sequence.
Seo, considered one of South Korea’s leading young men’s singles skaters, won the world junior title in 2024 and took silver at the World Junior Championships in 2025 and 2026.
The 17-year-old moved up to the senior level this season and reached the podium in his first Grand Prix appearance.
South Korean men’s figure skating has been seeking a new leading skater following Cha’s suspension of competitive activity, after he spent years competing among the world’s elite.
Seo will next compete at the third Grand Prix event in Shenzhen, China, from Nov. 6-8, where he will seek a place in the Grand Prix Final.
(This article was produced with the assistance of AI. — Ed.)
