Lim Hae-na and Kwon Ye, South Korea's only ice dance pair competing under the Gyeonggi Provincial Team, delivered a strong performance at the World Figure Skating Championships.
In the ice dance free dance held at the O2 Arena in Prague, Czech Republic, on March 28 local time, Lim and Kwon performed a clean routine at the 2026 International Skating Union (ISU) World Championships, earning a technical element score (TES) of 61.07 and a program component score (PCS) of 47.92 for a free dance total of 108.99.
Combined with their rhythm dance score of 69.83 from the previous day, Lim and Kwon finished with a total score of 178.82, placing 15th overall.
The duo had placed 14th at the 2024 championships but slipped to 18th last year before climbing back to 15th this year.
At the Milano-Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Olympics in February, Lim and Kwon failed to advance past the rhythm dance round and could not compete in the free dance. At this tournament, however, they advanced to the free dance and delivered an impressive performance.
The ice dance title went to Milano-Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Olympic gold medalists Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France, who scored a total of 230.91.
In the men's singles event, Ilia Malinin of the United States, known as the "Quad God," claimed his third consecutive world title.
Malinin landed five quadruple jumps out of seven jump elements in a dominant free skate performance, scoring 218.11. Combined with his short program score of 111.29, he won with a total of 329.40.
Malinin had finished a disappointing eighth at this year's Winter Olympics after critical jump errors, but his world championship victory proved once again that he is the dominant force in men's singles.
Yuma Kagiyama of Japan, who won silver at the Winter Olympics, finished second with 306.67, while fellow Japanese skater Shun Sato, the Olympic bronze medalist, placed third with 288.54.