hey nonnie!

so i'll immediately preface this by saying that i understand there's been a lot of noise made by fstwt regarding sunghoon and it's rarely ever been kind, so there's this instinctual defensiveness that fans would have regarding any commentary on his abilities coming from an outsider out of fear that it's been made in bad faith. i'm just saying that that's really not what i want to do here; i have no personal investment in this guy, positive or otherwise. this isn't coming from a place of malice or ridicule!! i'm speaking from the perspective of someone who's followed/researched the sport for a long time. it's also just that i've been asked this a LOT (more times than i can count lol).

so i'll start with what i like! there's a definite elegance to him when he's on the ice, and he's got a decent bend in his knees that makes his skating look softer. he's graceful, too. he had all his triples and they were quite stable when he was in juniors, but i think puberty really messed with his ability to land them, especially his 3a (which is incredibly common!! the period after/during juniors as a skater grows into their adult body is famously tumultuous--your limbs are getting longer, your center of gravity changes, and you have to accommodate for it). and while i do think he could have worked to get that stability back with time, he was already pretty firmly in the idol lane before he could make those adjustments.

and honestly "quite stable when he was in juniors" spells out his skillset to me pretty succinctly. like all in all he was a perfectly okay skater! decent enough skating skills although they could have been cleaner and his edges could have been deeper. i'm not particularly in love with his pcs and interpretation (i took particular note of his posture---especially in his later programs---because he tended to hunch his shoulders) and it bothered me that he never really gave full extensions bc it made his lines boxy and okay that can work!! if the program calls for it!! but his choreography leaned more into the flowy, classically balletic style we expect from fs and his execution really hindered his programs from landing as strongly imo.

now, as to how his career would have turned out if he'd kept going, i honestly doubt he would have gotten any better results than the ones he'd achieved at that point. the discipline that sunghoon was competitive in (men's singles) is THE most competitive from a technical standpoint, and he just didn't have the tech to keep up. the jump he had with the highest base value is the triple axel, but even still that jump is just the standard axel jump in men's (in contrast to women's where (prior to the quad revolution, anyway) the 3a is considered The ultra-c element that was achievable).

sunghoon needed quads to even have a shot at making the podium and he didn't have them. and ngl, his federation also puts him at a disadvantage. sokor is already a country that really struggles with the international skating circuit, barring a few standout stars (most famously yuna kim) that come out a few years at a time. the ksu doesn't have the funding, resources, or clout to devote to their athletes in the same way that, say, japan or america or russia does, so their fields just aren't as deep. so even if sunghoon had podiumed nationally, it would still be an uphill battle to medal at international comps, especially considering the crop of skaters in his same age bracket that he'd be going up against for the majority if not entirety of his senior career (kagiyama yuma of japan and ilia malinin of usa and cha junhwan who he'd be competing with at int'l AND nat'l comps)

it's also just that he never got to a single junior grand prix final or junior worlds, and i hear you, "es, someone's junior career doesn't always spell out how their senior career will go!!" and i agree with you, normally!!!! but taking all of the factors that i mentioned previously into account, his lack of success at any major competition doesn't paint the most promising picture.

so tl;dr: i think he was a perfectly okay skater, but i think he also made the right choice retiring at the time that he did. i think he and his fans are also much happier where he is now so all-around good for him!!

hopefully this was in any way insightful/informative!!!