You know that feeling when everything just breaks? Not like a small crack, but a full-on, "I want to disappear" kind of collapse. That was Adam Siao Him Fa at the 2025 French Masters. If you were following the figure skating circuit last August, you saw a world-class athlete—a guy who usually lands quadruple jumps like he's hopping over a puddle—basically unravel on the ice.
It was messy. It was confusing. Honestly, it was a bit painful to watch. But looking back from where we are now in 2026, that disastrous weekend in August wasn't just a bad day at the office. It was the wake-up call that redefined his entire road to the Olympics.
The Meltdown: What Happened at the French Masters 2025?
Let’s be real—the Masters de Patinage (often called the French Masters) is usually a victory lap for Adam. He’s the hometown hero. He’s the guy who brought the backflip back to competitive skating. People show up to see him fly. Instead, they saw him fall. And fall. And fall again.
He finished with 219.56 points. For context, this is a man who has cleared the 300-point barrier before. He opened his free skate with three straight falls. Three. Then he under-rotated two more jumps. He looked lost. After the skate, he didn't give the usual "I'll work harder" corporate athlete talk. He told reporters, "By far... my worst competition." He literally said he didn't know what direction to focus on.
That’s the part that sticks with you. It’s one thing to miss a jump; it’s another to have no idea why your body isn't doing what you told it to do.
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The Internal Battle Nobody Talks About
Why did the Adam Siao Him Fa French Masters 2025 performance go so sideways? Skating insiders started whispering about burnout. You have to remember, Adam isn't just a technical skater; he’s an artist who tries to do things differently. He’s the "positive rebel." Between his "S.O.S." program and his "Vitruvian Man" routines, he puts an insane amount of emotional energy into his choreography.
He had been training four or five quads in practice, and they were landing. Every single one. But the gap between "practice ice" and "competition ice" is a mile wide when your head isn't in it.
The French Masters is a domestic event. It’s meant to be a tune-up. But for Adam, it became a mirror. He realized that the relentless pace of the 2024 season had left him running on an empty tank. He was physically there, but the "spark" that makes him Adam Siao Him Fa—the guy who turns the ice into a canvas—was gone.
Comparing the Masters to the Rest of the Season
If you look at his 2025 timeline, the Masters stands out like a sore thumb:
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- March 2025 (Sonja Henie Trophy): Dominant. Nearly hit 100 in the short program.
- August 2025 (French Masters): The 219-point disaster. Total identity crisis.
- September 2025 (Lombardia Trophy): A slight recovery, but still fighting the ghosts of August.
- November 2025 (Finlandia Trophy): The comeback. He won the short program with a 92.50 despite breaking in brand new skates.
The "New Skates" Gamble
One of the most human moments of his 2025 season happened right after the French Masters. Most skaters wouldn't dare switch equipment mid-season unless they absolutely had to. But Adam's boots literally broke down.
By the time he got to the Finlandia Trophy in November, he was skating on boots that were barely a week old. Usually, that's a recipe for disaster. For him, it was a reset. It was almost like the physical breakdown of his gear matched the mental breakdown he had in August. He had to start from scratch.
When he took the ice in Helsinki for the Grand Prix, he wasn't just fighting Ilia Malinin or Yuma Kagiyama. He was proving to himself that the Adam Siao Him Fa French Masters 2025 version of himself was a ghost. He skated to his "Leonardo da Vinci" program and, even with a shaky quad toe, he looked alive again.
Why We Still Talk About the Masters
So, why does a random domestic competition from last year still matter? Because it humanized the sport. We get so used to seeing these athletes as jump-robots. We see the 4Lz and the 3A and we forget they have bad Tuesdays just like the rest of us.
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The Masters was the moment Adam stopped being a favorite and started being an underdog again. It forced his coaches, Cédric Tour and Benoît Richaud, to strip back the expectations. They realized he needed a "long preparation" between events rather than the grueling back-to-back schedule most top-tier skaters endure.
Actionable Insights for Skating Fans and Athletes
If you're a skater or just a die-hard fan, there are three big takeaways from Adam's 2025 rollercoaster:
- Burnout is a technical error. You can have the best quad Lutz in the world, but if your nervous system is fried, the jump won't happen. Adam's mid-season slump was a classic case of mental fatigue manifesting as physical failure.
- The "Worst Competition" is often the best data. Adam used the failure at the French Masters to realize his training schedule was too dense. He changed his approach to the Grand Prix series because of that 219-point score.
- Artistry requires energy. You can't perform "The Creation of Adam" if you feel like a shell of yourself. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice a month of training to save a year of competing.
The Adam Siao Him Fa French Masters 2025 disaster was the pivot point. Without that loss, he might have kept pushing until he broke during a World Championship or the Olympics. Instead, he took the hit early, leaned into his "rebellion," and reminded everyone that even the best skaters have to fall before they can truly fly.
Keep an eye on his rest cycles this year. If he’s skipping the smaller events, don't worry—it’s not because he’s losing his edge. It’s because he learned his lesson the hard way in August 2025.