Lee Si-hyeong (

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...

: 이시형; born December 15, 2000) is a South Korean figure skater. He represented his country at the 2022 Winter Olympics and is a five-time South Korean national medalist (bronze in 2017, 2019, silver in 2020, 2021, 2022).

Personal Life

Lee was born on December 15, 2000 in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

. He is currently a student at Korea University, where he studies

sports science Sports science is a discipline that studies how the healthy human body works during exercise, and how sport and physical activity promote health and performance from cellular to whole body perspectives. The study of sports science traditionally inc ...

. His figure skating idols are

Yuna Kim Yuna Kim (; born September 5, 1990), also credited in eastern name order as Kim Yuna or Kim Yeon-a, is a retired South Korean competitive figure skater. She is the 2010 Olympic champion and 2014 Olympic silver medalist in ladies' singles, ...

and Joshua Farris.

Career

Early career

Lee began figure skating at the age of ten after being inspired by

's victory at the

2010 Vancouver Olympics )'' , nations = 82 , athletes = 2,626 , events = 86 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , opening = February 12, 2010 , closing = February 28, 2010 , opened_by = Governor General Michaëlle Jean , cauldron = Catriona Le May DoanNancy GreeneWayne Gretz ...

. As a junior skater, Lee competed at 2013 Asian Open Trophy, where he finished second and then went on to win the bronze medal 2013 Korean Junior Championships. The following year, Lee won another silver medal at Asian Open Trophy on the junior level. At the 2014 Korean Championships, Lee placed second on the junior level and eighth on the senior level. At the 2015 Korean Championships, Lee finished sixth.

2015–16 season

Making his international debut, Lee placed ninth and eighth at 2015 Junior Grand United States and 2015 Junior Grand Prix Croatia, respectively. He concluded his season with a fifth-place finish at the 2016 Korean Championships.

2016–17 season

Lee started the 2016–17 figure skating season by placing seventeenth at 2016 Junior Grand Prix France and eighth at 2016 Junior Grand Prix Russia. Making his senior international debut, Lee also competed at the

2016 CS Ondrej Nepela Memorial The 2016 CS Ondrej Nepela Memorial ( sk, Memoriál Ondreja Nepelu) was held on September and October 2016. It is an annual senior international figure skating competition held in Bratislava, Slovakia. It was part of the 2016–17 ISU Challenger ...

, where he placed eleventh. Lee then went on to win the bronze medal at the 2017 Korean Championships and was selected to compete at the 2017 Four Continents Championships and the 2017 World Junior Championships, where he finished sixteenth at both events.

2017–18 season

Lee began the

2017–18 figure skating season The 2017–18 figure skating season began on July 1, 2017, and ended on June 30, 2018. During this season, elite skaters competed at the ISU Championship level in the 2018 European, Four Continents, World Junior, and World Championships, as wel ...

with a ninth and tenth-place finishes at 2017 Junior Grand Prix Belarus and 2017 Junior Grand Prix Italy, respectively. He was named to the 2018 Four Continents and 2018 World Junior teams, following a fourth-place finish at the 2018 Korean Championships. Lee would go on to place twenty-second and eleventh, respectively, at those events.

2018–19 season

Although assigned to compete at 2018 Junior Grand Prix Canada and 2018 Asian Open Trophy, Lee withdrew from both events. After winning the bronze medal at the 2019 Korean Championships, Lee was assigned to compete at the 2019 Four Continents Championships and the 2019 World Junior Championships. He placed fifteenth at Four Continents and then went on to place twenty-ninth in the short program at Junior Worlds, failing to advance to the free skate segment of the competition.

2019–20 season

Lee won his first international figure skating medal, a silver at 2019 Junior Grand Prix Latvia, before finishing sixth at 2019 Junior Grand Prix Croatia. Lee would then go on to finish fifth at 2019 Asian Open Trophy. Competing at the 2020 South Korean Championships, Lee won the silver medal behind Cha Jun-hwan and was assigned to compete at the 2020 Four Continents Championships, where he finished fourteenth.

2020–21 season

Due to the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

pandemic, Lee only competed at the 2021 Korean Championships, where he won his second consecutive silver.

2021–22 season

Cha Jun-hwan's tenth-place finish at the 2021 World Championships earned two spots for men's singles at the 2022 World Championships and provided the opportunity for Korean men's singles skaters to earn a second berth for the 2022 Beijing Olympics at the

Nebelhorn Trophy The Nebelhorn Trophy is an international senior-level figure skating competition organized by the Deutsche Eislauf-Union and held annually in Oberstdorf, Germany. It became part of the ISU Challenger Series in the 2014–15 season. The competit ...

, the final Olympic figure skating qualifying event. Lee was able to grant that second berth, following his fifth-place finish at the Nebelhorn Trophy. He then went on to finish seventh at 2021 Asian Open Trophy. After winning the silver medal at the 2022 Korean Championships, Lee was named to the

Four Continents Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia, and Europe. Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Africa in the south, America in the west, Asia in the east, ...

, Olympic, and World team for South Korea. Lee finished seventh at the Four Continents Championships. Competing at the 2022 Winter Olympics in the men's event, Lee placed twenty-seventh in the short program and failed to advance to the event's free skate segment. Regardless, Lee stated that he was grateful for the "valuable and precious experience." At the 2022 World Championships, Lee scored a personal best in the short program, finishing thirteenth in that segment of the competition but dropped to eighteenth overall following an error-ridden free skate. During those championships, Lee expressed his support for

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

following Russia's invasion by having a

Ukrainian flag The flag of Ukraine ( uk, Прапор України, Prapor Ukrainy) consists of equally sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow. The blue and yellow bicolour first appeared during the 1848 Spring of Nations in Lemberg, then part of the ...

patch pinned to his jacket.

2022–23 season

Lee began the

2022–23 figure skating season The 2022–23 figure skating season began on July 1, 2022 and will end on June 30, 2023. During this season, elite skaters will compete on the ISU Championship level at the 2023 European, Four Continents, World Junior, and World Championships. ...

with a silver medal win at the

2022 CS Nebelhorn Trophy The 2022 CS Nebelhorn Trophy was held on September 21–24, 2022 in Oberstdorf, Germany. It was part of the 2022–23 ISU Challenger Series. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of single skating, men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, pa ...

, where he scored a new personal best in the short program. Competing at his first senior ISU Grand Prix event, Lee competed at 2022 Grand Prix de France where he finished in fourth-place, scoring a personal best in the free skate and placed second in that segment of the competition. He would go on to describe this event as one of the "highlights of his career so far" in an interview following the season. Lee was selected to compete at the 2023 Winter University Games and 2023 Four Continents Championships, after finishing fourth at the 2023 Korean Championships. He would place sixth at both of these events. Lee would then go on to participate at 2023 World Team Trophy following the qualification of Team South Korea for the first time in the event's history. Lee earned the team a total of four points from his tenth-place short program and twelfth-place free skate. However, with the team's combined scored, South Korea managed to win the team silver medal overall.

2023–24 season

Having attended the 2015 Four Continents Championships in

, Lee was inspired by Joshua Farris's Give Me Love short program and decided to have Farris choreograph his 2023–24 figure skating season free program. He specifically asked Farris to choreograph a program in a similar style to what Farris would have skated to.

Skating technique

Lee is known for primarily performing his jumps with both arms over his head, which he says helps him find balance in the air.

Programs

Competitive highlights

''CS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix''

Detailed results

Senior level

Junior level

References

External links

* 2000 births Living people South Korean male single skaters People from Namyangju Figure skaters at the 2022 Winter Olympics Olympic figure skaters of South Korea Competitors at the 2023 Winter World University Games Sportspeople from Gyeonggi Province {{SouthKorea-figure-skating-bio-stub