Lim Hannah, 18, and Quan Ye, 21, on Aug. 27 perform in the first round of the International Skating Union's 2022-23 Junior Grand Prix Series in Courchevel, France. (ISU Figure Skating's Facebook)

By Jung Joo-ri

An ice dance team of Lim Hannah, 18, and Quan Ye, 21, has won Korea's first gold medal at the International Skating Union's (ISU) Junior Grand Prix Series.

In the first round of the 2022-23 Junior Grand Prix in Courchevel, France, the team earned a technical element score of 54.55 and program component score of 44.70 for a total of 99.25 in the free dance.

The day before, Lim and Quan received 62.71 points for their rhythm dance, thus scoring a combined 161.96 and beating the French team of Celina Fradji and Jean-Hans Fourneaux (147.66) for first place.

This is the first time for either a Korean senior or junior ice dance team to win a gold in the ISU Grand Prix. Lim and Quan debuted in the 2021-22 season and won a bronze in that season's first event, thus becoming Korea's first ice dance team to win a major competition.

Lim has Canadian and Korean nationality and began skating for Korea last season. Quan is a Chinese Canadian born in Iceland.

Unlike the Olympics, which requires that both team members have the same nationality, the ISU allows skaters on a team to have different nationalities as long as one nationality is chosen. Lim and Quan became partners in 2019 and train in Canada.

In an interview with the ISU after the event, Lim said, "We would like to make it to the Grand Prix final. We would have to do pretty well at our next Grand Prix."

Quan added, "We really wanted to see the progress we had since Worlds, and yes, with the score we had today, we're really proud of what we did."

Korea also won medals in all categories at this event. Cha Young-hyun, 19, won the silver in the junior men's singles with 196.15 points, while Kim Yoo-jae, 13, won the bronze in the junior women's singles with 185.67.

etoilejr@korea.kr