Uno Shoma lays down marker on second day of World Championships practice

Is Olympic silver medallist Kagiyama Yuma the gold medal favourite at the 2022 World Figure Skating Championships?

His Japanese teammate Uno Shoma may well have something to say about that, judging by the second day of practice in Montpellier, France, on Tuesday (22 March).

Uno, who missed Monday morning's practice session, laid down a reminder that he is not to be counted out, with a strong practice skate in his first outing at the Sud de France Arena, which is hosting this year's World Championships.

Compared to almost every other skater, Uno's 35 minutes on the ice did not produce any obvious mistakes or falls, despite him having not skated on this rink before Tuesday evening.

While Kagiyama may have finished ahead of him at the recent Beijing 2022 Olympic Games, Uno clearly means business in Montpellier as he looks for a maiden world title.

In Beijing, Uno set two personal best scores in his short program, both in the team and the individual event.

Here in Montpellier, he looked comfortable during his music run through of that program – a quad flip, quad toe-triple toe combination, and triple Axel – while also practising his other quads, the Salchow and loop, which form part of his free skate.

By contrast, Kagiyama seemed to have a number of problems early on during the session getting his Salchow off, including a two-footed landing on one, before a clean short program run-through that saw no repeat of Monday's technical issues with his music.

While the Japanese pair are runaway favourites to make the podium, the third spot remains a wide-open prospect without either Nathan Chen or Hanyu Yuzuru present.

The next-best-placed finisher from Beijing, fifth-placed Cha Junhwan of South Korea, fell on a quad toe attempt