The Music That Won the Gold Medal: [곽민정의 백플립]

There are not many sports events that include music. In particular, figure skating is the only sport in the Winter Olympics. This is what differentiates figure skating from other sports and is a unique advantage. Expressing music well is an important task for a figure skater.

Korean men’s singles star Cha Jun-hwan (25) changed the music of his free skating program from ‘Moulin Rouge Original Soundtrack’ to ‘Balada para un Loco’ ahead of the Four Continents Championships held at the end of last month. ‘Ballad for a Madman’ is the music he used when winning the gold medal at the 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games.

As a figure skater, the program of the season in which you did well always remains in your mind. I get to choose a new song every season, and there is bound to be a season when I was in the best condition or performance, so I sometimes think, ‘That stage I was on at that time, that music seems to give me good energy.’ For the same reason, when a season doesn’t go as planned, or when the season is particularly desperate, there are times when we return to programs from the good times. Lee Hae-in (21), a female single, also re-selected music from the past to play a season, and I also went back to the previous season’s music because I wasn’t particularly used to the new program.

The standards and methods for selecting music vary from player to player. Players who are very interested in music or have a clear direction of ‘what kind of performance they want to show this season’ actively participate in song selection. Cha Jun-hwan, who has excellent program choreography skills, is also known as a player who reflects his opinions to some extent in song selection.

In particular, more effort is put into song selection during the Olympic season, which comes around once every four years. Since the Olympics is the most ardent stage for all athletes, there are often cases where they choose music that expresses the atmosphere they can best express rather than ‘adventure’.

One of the reasons Cha Jun-hwan changed his program right before the Olympics could be because he liked ‘the way he expresses that music.’ He is a player who shows a variety of expressive skills depending on the music, and he may have felt the most ‘like me’ in his performance in ‘Ballad for a Madman’. Of course, there will be difficulties if you change the program during the season, but Cha Jun-hwan is a player who has a lot of practice and is thorough in his preparation process, so I have confidence in that choice.

It’s not figure skating without music. Decide on the music first, then add technique and expression on top of it. So, ‘choosing music well’ is very important in figure acting. I think the ability to choose a song that best expresses oneself is also an important factor for a player.

I think Yuna Kim was really good at that. There are times when some players cannot remember what music they played to, even after playing for several seasons. Maybe it’s because I can’t digest the music well enough. On the other hand, Yuna Kim clearly remembers all the programs she performed, what kind of music, and what kind of performance she did in what season during her active career. The same goes for Cha Jun-hwan.

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