World Figure Skating Championships: Loena Hendrickx leads after women's short program as Sakamoto Kaori stumbles (2024)

Two-time world medallist Loena Hendrickx of Belgium is one skate away from the biggest title of her career.

The 24-year-old delivered a career-best 76.98 in the women's short program at the World Figure Skating Championships on Wednesday night (20 March) in Montreal as rival Sakamoto Kaori, the two-time and reigning world champion from Japan, stumbled to fourth place with a 73.29.

American Isabeau Levito had a redemptive skate after her own stumble in January at the U.S. Championships, scoring a 73.73 to place second. 2023 world silver medallist Lee Haein of the Republic of Korea sits third at 73.55.

Sakamoto and You Young (67.37), Lee's Korean teammate, round out the top five.

Hendrickx earned a standing ovation for her Deep House Mix (feat. Madonna) medley, falling to her knees upon completion and covering her face with her hands. She was the 2022 world silver medallist behind Sakamoto, and in 2023 won the bronze.

She looks to become the first singles world champion from Belgium, and the first figure skating world champion from her country since Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet won back-to-back pairs titles in 1947-48.

"I'm very happy with my performance today," said Hendrickx, who was dealing with a hip injury prior to Worlds. "I had a difficult preparation. I knew that I could do it and I tried to believe in myself.

She added: "I came here to enjoy the crowd and that what I did. I didn't think about the pressure."

• Isabeau Levito: 'I want to skate the way I know I can'

Sakamoto Kaori: 'I felt like something was not right'

Skating last, Sakamoto looked to lead after the short, having not lost an international competition all season.

But she was shaky going into her triple Lutz after opening the program with a smooth double Axel, barely saving the jump (which was called for an unclear edge takeoff), and then heading to the other end of the ice her triple flip-triple toe-loop combination - just barely.

The crowd met Sakamoto with a deflated applause just minutes after it had stood for Hendrickx. The writing was on the wall: She would be fourth after the short, 0.26 points back from Lee.

"Today I felt like I was going to have a good skate, but when it came to the actual performance I felt like something was not right," Sakamoto told Olympics.com via an interpreter. "Even then, given those circ*mstances, I didn't fall or pop any jumps. So I think I tried to keep myself together as much as possible, so I can give myself that."

Each of Hendrickx, Levito and Lee were seamless on their tech score sheets, though Levito was called for an unclear edge on her Lutz, too, which she did in combination. She said she was satisfied with the work she put in since her bronze medal finish at nationals.

"I worked so hard to skate the way that I skated today," she said. " I'm very happy to see my hard work paying off [and] I'm happy that I took how I skated at nationals and I didn't let that bring me down."

Lee, who slumped to 11th at Four Continents just last month, looked resurgent - much as she did at Worlds 12 months ago.

"After Four Continents I wanted to skate for myself," she said. "I think after [that], my motivation was just myself. I have been trying to train for myself. That's why I have gotten better and why I skated good today."

Asked to give herself advice when she was down, she said - with a smile: "Be happy, don't worry."

Sakamoto, meanwhile, will look to rebound on Friday night (22 March) and become the first woman to go back-to-back-to-back at Worlds since Peggy Fleming in 1966-68.

"I've worked hard all this year," she said. "So I want to make this World Championships [a culmination] of the season. On Friday I will make sure that I have a very great skate."