Cha Jun-hwan of South Korea performs his free skate program during the men's singles figure skating competition at the Asian Winter Games at Heilongjiang Ice Events Training Center Multifunctional Hall in Harbin, China, Thursday. Yonhap

South Korean figure skater Cha Jun-hwan won a surprise gold medal in his first Asian Winter Games appearance in China on Thursday with a flawless free skate.

Cha scored 187.60 points in the men's singles free skate to finish with 281.69 points overall at Heilongjiang Ice Events Training Center Multifunctional Hall in Harbin. Yuma Kagiyama of Japan, the 2022 Olympic silver medalist who has also won three silver medals at world championships, settled for silver with 272.76, after earning just 168.95 points in his mistake-filled free skate.

Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan won the bronze medal with 246.01 points.

South Korea swept the men's and women's singles titles in Harbin, with Kim Chae-yeon having upset three-time world champion from Japan Kaori Sakamoto earlier on the same rink on Thursday.

Kagiyama had topped the short program with 103.81 points Tuesday, with Cha sitting in second place with 94.09 points. With no one else over 90 points, Cha, the 2023 world silver medalist, was the only one with an outside chance of catching Kagiyama in the free skate.

Cha, 23, did exactly that as the second-to-last skater to perform, just in front of Kagiyama.

With "Balada para un Loco" playing, Cha cleanly landed his first four jump elements, including the opening quadruple salchow and the follow-up quadruple toe loop.

Cha Jun-hwan of South Korea performs his free skate program during the men's singles figure skating competition at the Asian Winter Games at Heilongjiang Ice Events Training Center Multifunctional Hall in Harbin, China, Thursday. Yonhap

His combination jumps were all smooth, and he even added a triple loop to his planned triple flip in the back end of his program.

Cha finished with 99.02 points in his technical score and 88.58 points in his program components score, both of them tops in the competition. Long known as an expressive skater, Cha earned high marks for his step sequences, spins and choreo sequences.

Kagiyama struggled with his technical elements from the start. He touched the ice with his hand trying to land a quadruple flip. After landing a quadruple salchow cleanly, Kagiyama fell on a quadruple lutz and then ended up doing a double toe loop while attempting a planned triple toe loop.

Kagiyama fell again on a triple axel toward the end.

Kagiyama scored 85.87 points for his technical elements, only the fourth best in the field, and had 85.08 points in program components.

One other South Korean, Kim Hyun-gyeom, withdrew from the free skate due to an ankle injury. He had 58.22 points in the short program. (Yonhap)