Vincent Zhou became the first U.S. singles skater to win a world junior title in four years on Thursday.
Zhou, a 16-year-old who took silver at the U.S. senior nationals in January, landed three quadruple jumps in his free skate to jump from fifth after the short program to take gold in Taipei, Taiwan.
Zhou trailed by 4.61 points after the short program, where he didn’t attempt a quad. He had the highest free skate score by 13.61 points.
Zhou’s total score — 258.11 points — rank him 11th in the world this season among all skaters and fourth among Americans behind Nathan Chen (world-leading 307.