Do your best to make it to the top. Stick with the process so you see results. Approach perfection through failure. These are the lessons that Cha Junhwan, who, at Harbin 2025, became the first Korean male figure skater to ever win a gold medal in men’s singles at the Asian Winter Games, has learned along the way. And even now, as he prepares for his third Olympics—the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics—he lives by those same principles.

I saw your “GQ Korea” “My Essentials” video where you revealed what’s inside the bag you usually take to competitions. I see you didn’t bring a bag with you today, though. (laughs)
Cha Junhwan: I’m just going for light practice today, so. (laughs) Normally, I have a backpack with things like a lunch for breaks during practice, a change of clothes for after, and clothes for off-ice training. And as for my gear like my skates, skate guards, and resistance bands, I take those with me in a separate suitcase. The backpack I use lately was given to me along with a uniform from the national championships, and it can hold a ton of things, so I’ve been using it a lot.

You must get really hungry when you’re training. Is it true that you mostly eat cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, or fruits for lunch to manage your weight?
Cha Junhwan: When I have two or three training sessions back to back, I eat lunch during the break after the first one. During that break, I eat just enough to keep me going. You can get an immediate energy boost if you eat carbs, but since I’m taller and heavier compared to other skaters, I’ve come to feel that keeping an eye on my weight is necessary. It’s my own little way of putting in effort and taking care of myself. (laughs)

When you were on Chef Sung Ahn’s YouTube channel and cooked steak for the first time, you also used only the smallest amount of butter necessary. Since your whole reason for learning how to cook was for your family, have you done that yet?
Cha Junhwan: Nope, not yet. (laughs) I really love food, to be honest, so right after the competition season ends, I eat to my heart’s desire with my family. I love bisque, which is made from shellfish innards, and I’m a big fan of linguine. I really like pasta, so next time, I want to try making Western dishes.

I heard you were in the US for training up until last week. Did you eat a lot of Western food while you were there? (laughs)
Cha Junhwan: There was a Korean grocery store when I was in Canada, too, but back then, I still ate the same—just meat and salad. And since my choreographer is based in the US, I go there every year for two weeks, but it’s pretty much nonstop practice while I’m there, so I don’t leave with many special memories of it. (laughs) Oh, but I did get invited to their house this time for a family dinner and movie night.

You visit the US annually now, and you spent a long time in Canada during middle school to train. Adjusting to a new language, environment, and culture in a completely different place for the sake of your dream couldn’t have been easy. Still, as you’ve said before, you made that choice “solely to train for figure skating.”
Cha Junhwan: I put everything I had into that and nothing else at the time. I practiced a ton and just kept chasing my goals without a second thought. I entered senior competitions as soon as I was old enough, which made me the youngest. The people I was competing against already had four more years of experience at that level than me. But I stayed focused on my own performance and reminded myself that giving it my best shot was what really mattered.

It feels like just yesterday you were saying none of the senior skaters you’re up against are your age, and now you’re the oldest one in men’s singles. (laughs)
Cha Junhwan: The next one after me in age is five years younger than I am. No one one, two, three, or four years younger—just straight to five years apart. (laughs) And I heard that the youngest person on the entire national team is 10 years younger than me.

Most figure skaters are in their teens or early to mid- 20s, right? And since it’s a singles event, you’re all friends and professionals, but also rivals at the same time.
Cha Junhwan: Right. Since figure skating is an individual sport, in a sense, everyone’s a rival. But at some point, even at the World Championships, I started thinking, “I hope everyone does well. I want to give my all, and I want them to give their all too.” Yes, we’re in competition, but we’re all in this same sport together. At the very least, knowing how much effort I put in helps me appreciate their effort, too, so I started hoping that when they go out to showcase their programs, they’ll do so without any regrets. That mindset has helped me get along even better with them.

Kind of like the video where Team Korea dances to the LE SSERAFIM song “The Hydra,” right? (laughs)
Cha Junhwan: There’s this event called the World Team Trophy that happens every two years. Only the top six countries in the world ranking, combined across men’s singles, women’s singles, pairs, and ice dance, get to participate. It was Korea’s first time going, and one of the requirements was for athletes from each country to make a promotional video for the event. We were like, “This is our first time and we have to do a good job. So what should we even do?” Then we got deep into brainstorming and thought, “We should go all out.” The event was held in Japan, and we thought “The Hydra” would work since the lyrics are in Korean, English, and Japanese. Plus, it’d give us a chance to show off a famous Korean song while showcasing each skater’s individuality. The video starts by each of us performing moves from our programs as a personal intro, and at the end, the four of us come together and do a group routine blending bits from each other’s choreography. The music for my program then was from “007,” so my move was starting with my hand on my chin, then turning to look back dramatically. And I filmed and edited the whole thing.

In the free skate segment at the 2023 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, you were a charismatic spy from the “007” series, but for your “Balada Para Un Loco” free skate at this year’s Asian Winter Games in Harbin, you were a young man in love.
Cha Junhwan: With “Balada Para Un Loco,” I had to figure out how to tell a complete story in just four minutes and 10 seconds, which wasn’t easy. At one point, I even thought about blending it with a completely different kind of tango song, but the Milva version of that song’s already so beautiful and deeply moving that I was mesmerized, so I decided to use the instrumental version. Anyway, I like to make decisions by asking for lots of input along the way. I put out ideas like, “What do you think about doing it this way? Or what about changing up this part?” Or, “I feel like this section should really stand out more.” I work on two programs every season, and I always try and push myself to explore new angles.

Why is that?
Cha Junhwan: It’s a personal challenge, and I also want to keep giving audiences new and different sides of who I am. I try to introduce a different genre and direction every time, but since figure skating uses so much music, sometimes songs get reused. At some point, I started thinking that great music deserves to be used no matter what, and even if it’s the same song, each skater brings their own life experiences and interpretations, which makes it feel different each time. That’s why I try to emphasize my individuality by having a unique twist on the music or working in more storytelling. And even if I’m doing the same spin, if I add arm movements or make it work perfectly with the music, it becomes its own unique interpretation. I could even take my signature spin and evolve it into something distinct.

Like your signature move, the “Juna Bauer”? You have a distinctive approach to the Ina Bauer*, incorporating a curved glide and head movements.
Cha Junhwan: The Ina Bauer itself is already a stunningly beautiful move, but by adding the head turn, I try to enhance what we like to call its texture and flavor. You piece together one move after the other to make a complete program, and I feel paying close attention to each of them adds so much depth overall.
*Ina Bauer: A skating technique where the front leg is bent and the other extended out behind as the skater glides across the ice with blades in parallel. Cha Junhwan’s Ina Bauer is so distinctive that fans have nicknamed it the Juna Bauer.

Your “texture” and “flavor” seemed to stand out even more last season. Not only did you make noticeable growth where choreography and technical ability are concerned, but the transitions** between elements also made your program flow more naturally. I heard you’ve had more success with your solo jumps since placing them earlier in your programs. Is that true?
Cha Junhwan: Oh, actually, last season’s free program was kind of an accident. (laughs) Around this time last year, there was talk that the jump rule was going to change from seven jumps to six, so many skaters choreographed their programs with only six jumps, including me. But then the rule ended up staying at seven jumps, which meant I had to add one back in, and I already had all six toward the beginning of my program. The problem was, I really didn’t want to cut out any of my choreography or transitions. I could’ve gone back to doing jumps the way I used to, but I wanted to preserve the overflow flow of the new direction for the choreography as much as possible. It was a happy accident because it helped me discover new possibilities.
**Transition: Literally, a transition between figure skating moves or elements like jumps, spins, and step sequences

Did that discovery influence your approach to the current season?
Cha Junhwan: The season’s still in the early stages, so I’m not sure how it’ll evolve yet. For now, I’m working away at it.

You’ve mentioned before that you tended to be a perfectionist in the past but that skating’s really helped you let go of that mindset. Maybe that’s why it seems like you’ve stopped demanding perfection from the outset and now arrive there more gradually by focusing on how you can improve through trial and error as you practice.
Cha Junhwan: What I’ve learned from sports is that mistakes can happen anytime, and so I’ve come to believe that letting go of that obsession with perfection can actually help you get closer to it. In technical terms, there’s a clear line between success and failure, like, “you have to have this many rotations,” but at the same time, even if there’s a mistake, it’s still a part of the moment. If you gave it your all, then I still count that as a success, regardless of whether you were successful on the technical side of things.

You have to go through years of endless injury, failure and experimentation just to successfully land a single element. As you’ve said before, “Nothing comes easy, and failure’s just a normal part of the process—to the point that I don’t even want to call it failure.”
Cha Junhwan: Honestly, I experience so much failure. And to be frank, I’m not even sure there’s ever a point where I can say something’s perfect. You can sort of say you’ve perfected something once you’re successful at it, but the possibility you’ll fail is always there. You make endless mistakes, fail again and again, and fall down, but even after you finally pull it off, the process of refining that skill and taking it to the next level takes even longer. You spend even more time improving on it to earn a higher score. It’s a never-ending task when you’re a skater, really. Figure skating is a sport where you have to keep developing your technical skill from the second you start until the day you retire. And you can’t even tell if you’re improving while you’re doing it—it’s only when you look back that you realize, “Oh, I’ve gotten a bit better.” So it’s always tough, but as long as you don’t have any regrets, that’s all that matters.

Hasn’t that been a difficult process for you?
Cha Junhwan: Of course. It’s never just fun and games. There were plenty of times where I had to push through while injured, too. Looking back, I struggled with injuries continuously from the season before last to the middle of last season. It wasn’t until the later part of the season that I started to regain my form. At that point, I had no choice but to go into practice and competitions with the mindset of, “Do what you can and just do your best.” But those tough experiences ended up being valuable. They helped me a lot later on in the season. At the time, it was incredibly challenging, but even just going through with that and confronting it all is a form of experience. To be honest, there were competitions where I totally bombed. (laughs) Even though it was upsetting, I don’t regret them—including competing there.

You said something before: “I believe I have to go through a lot of mistakes and failures to eventually make something my own and succeed, so I made this choice, even though I might mess up the difficult moves.” What’s a goal you’re determined to achieve, even if it means facing failures along the way?
Cha Junhwan: I always aim to improve on my technique, and now that we’re in the Olympic training season, the most important thing is to perfect that. Up until now, my strategy’s been to earn more points through higher-quality execution, but this time, I want to take my technical abilities even further while maintaining the same quality level at the same time. Pulling off the highest spin level, Level 4, is one of my goals. To get to the highest level on non-jump elements like spins and get a high score, I focus a lot on how well they connect to the music. I also work on showing off unique movements and being faster. Constant practice is of course one requirement when it comes to improving, but I’ve found that having diverse experiences also greatly contributes to improving technique.

What kind of experiences help with that?
Cha Junhwan: Sometimes, when I return to training after competing, I find that the quality of my jumps has improved a little. Honestly, I’ve never thought to myself, “This is the best I’ve ever done” (laughs) but when I look back at last season’s videos, I can tell my ability to do my programs has become smoother compared to previous seasons, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. As I perform elements, I seem to become more fully immersed in the moment, and it ends up looking more effortless.

That sounds like something only someone who’s tied their skate laces so many times that they have calluses on their hands in the shape of the laces can say. (laughs)
Cha Junhwan: You have to tie them super tight.
(showing calluses and scars on his hands) The calluses never go away completely, but wearing gloves as much as possible has helped keep them under control.

In the past, you described yourself with words like “learner,” “smile,” and “passion,” which seem to be the reasons you’ve become the person you are today. You’ve learned so much through all your experiences, laughed through it all, and demonstrated a passion that’s stronger than mistakes and failures. What words would you use to describe yourself now that you’ve won your first Asian Games gold medal and are preparing for the Olympics?
Cha Junhwan: The word that represents who I am now is “me.” For my short program, I tried to work in my own story—a reflection of my whole life. My previous programs told stories through imagination and narrative, but this time, I wanted to project more of myself onto it. And even though the short and free programs are completely different from each other, when you look at them together, the one idea that’s emphasized in both of them is emotion. I’ve worked closely with my choreographer to express my emotions in a direct way. Instead of using metaphors to compare one thing to another, I wanted to express things for exactly what they are. My programs this season are essentially about self-expression, and as I’m preparing for my third Olympics, I want to skate in the way that feels truest to myself. So even though I’m telling my own personal story, I hope they’ll also resonate with the people watching—to the point that it invites them to reflect on their own lives. But I’ve still got a long way to go. (laughs)

I know it’s a cliché question, but what does it mean to be Cha Junhwan?
Cha Junhwan: It’s giving everything I’ve got. Whether I do well or not, no matter what the competition is, that experience is never going to come around again, so it’s all about appreciating the moment.