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The World Figure Skating Championships are always a big deal. And this year’s edition, starting Wednesday in Boston, carries more weight than usual.
In addition to deciding this season’s world champions (and silver and bronze medallists), the next five days of competition will determine how many entries each country receives for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.
We’ll get into how that works later. But first, let’s look at who to watch.
Canadians to watch
Last year in Montreal, the pairs team of Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps thrilled the adoring crowd by capturing Canada’s first figure skating world title since 2018, while ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier earned a silver for their third worlds medal in four years.
These two duos remain Canada’s top medal contenders this week in Boston, and that will likely be the case for the Olympics too.
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps started this season strong, winning both of their Grand Prix assignments in the fall. More good news came in December when the Chicago-born Stellato-Dudek finally became a Canadian citizen, clearing the way for the Montreal resident to compete for Canada at the Olympics (citizenship requirements for other international skating events are less stringent).
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But health issues have dogged them since then. A Deschamps illness forced them out of the Grand Prix Final in December, and their preparations for last month’s Four Continents championships were affected when Stellato-Dudek took a hard fall in practice and badly bruised her backside. A rough short program put the Canadians behind the eight ball before they rebounded with their best free skate of the season to climb to the silver behind 2023 world champs Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan.
Gilles and Poirier are the premier Canadian ice dancers of the post-Virtue and Moir era. They’ve won four consecutive national titles (excluding their absence in 2023, when Gilles was recovering from surgery for ovarian cancer) and reached the podium at the world championships in 2021 (bronze), 2023 (bronze again) and 2024 (silver).
Though they didn’t finish better than seventh in their two Olympic appearances, Gilles and Poirier won the prestigious Grand Prix Final two seasons ago. They took gold and silver in their two regular Grand Prix events this season before finishing fifth in the Final after Poirier tripped on the boards during their short program. But the Canadians repeated as Four Continents champions last month, narrowly defeating reigning world champs Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States.
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Canada has another solid ice dance team in Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who finished fifth at last year’s worlds and just took bronze at the Four Continents for the second time. The other Canadian ice dancers competing this week are Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer, who are making their worlds debut.
Two other tandems will join Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps in the pairs event. Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud finished eighth at the 2024 worlds and took bronze at this year’s Four Continents for their first-ever medal at an international championship (albeit one closed to Europeans). Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Éthier were 15th at last year’s worlds.
While Canada qualified the maximum three entries in both the pairs and ice dance, it has just one skater in each of the singles events — and neither of them are expected to contend for a medal. Madeline Schizas placed 18th in the women’s competition at last year’s worlds, while Roman Sadovsky was 19th in the men’s.
Internationals to watch
Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto will try to become the first skater in 65 years to win four consecutive women’s world titles. She started the season by winning both of her regular Grand Prix assignments but only managed a bronze at the Final as American Amber Glenn — also a double winner on the tour — took the gold.
In the men’s event, American Ilya Malinin remains the guy to beat after winning his first world title last year. The now 20-year-old Quad God nailed an astonishing six of them in the free skate in Montreal (including his signature quad axel, which no one else has ever landed in competition) to deny Shoma Uno of a three-repeat and send the Japanese star into retirement. Malinin swept his Grand Prix events this season, including his second straight Final victory.
In pairs, the challengers for Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps’ title include the aforementioned Miura and Kihara of Japan, who were the world champs in 2023 and silver medallists last year; and Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin, who took bronze at the Montreal worlds and are the back-to-back Grand Prix Final champions.
In the ice dance, Gilles and Poirier will try to stop Chock and Bates from capturing their third straight world title after upsetting the American married couple at the Four Continents. Chock and Bates also lost to Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson on home ice at the Skate America Grand Prix but went on to win their second straight Final.
How Olympic qualification works
Each country is allowed up to three entries in each event (women’s, men’s, pairs and ice dance) at next year’s Winter Olympics in Italy. Without getting into all the ins and outs of the arcane Olympic quota system, here’s what that means for Canada:
* In the pairs and ice dance, where Canada has three teams each in Boston, only the top two Canadian results will count toward Olympic qualification. If those two placings add up to 13 or less (for example, a third-place finish and a 10th), Canada earns three Olympic spots. If the sum is 14 or higher, it gets two. In the unlikely case that the sum is higher than 28, Canada only gets one spot.
* In the men’s and women’s events, which have just one Canadian each this week, Canada needs a top-10 finish to receive two Olympic spots. Otherwise, it will get just one.
Also, remember that Canadian skaters cannot directly qualify themselves for the Olympics at these worlds. The national governing body will award its spots to specific athletes following the Canadian championships next January.
How to watch
You can catch every skate live on CBCSports.ca and CBC Gem. Here’s the full streaming schedule:
Wednesday — Women’s short program at 12:05 p.m. ET, pairs short at 6:15 p.m. ET.
Thursday — Men’s short at 11:05 a.m. ET, pairs free at 6:15 p.m. ET.
Friday — Ice dance rhythm dance at 11:15 a.m. ET, women’s free at 6 p.m. ET.
Saturday — Ice dance free at 1:30 p.m. ET, men’s free at 6 p.m. ET.
Sunday — Exhibition gala at 2 p.m. ET.
The CBC TV network will broadcast additional coverage of the worlds on Saturday from 3-6 p.m. ET and Sunday from 2-4 p.m. in your local time zone.
For more on the worlds, watch this preview from CBC Sports’ That Figure Skating Show.
