Outside of the Olympics, there is no bigger competition in skating than the World Figure Skating Championships held the year before the Games.
All skaters compete to qualify for spots on their countries’ Olympic teams. The very best can cement themselves as medal favorites for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.
For American skaters, there is added significance. These worlds are being held in Boston, the first ones in the U.S. since 2016, and in the year before the Olympics for the first time since 2009.
The U.S. boasts the reigning world champions in men’s singles (Ilia Malinin) and ice dance (Madison Chock and Evan Bates), plus the world’s top women’s singles skater this season (Amber Glenn). Americans could win three of the four world titles for the first time.
Remembering lives lost on Flight 5342
The Skating Club of Boston, the organizing host of these worlds, is one of the five figure skating clubs that lost members in the midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29.
This Wednesday, the first day of the competition, a tribute will be held between the women’s and pairs’ short programs.
Malinin belongs to the Washington Figure Skating Club, which also had skaters, skaters’ parents and a coach on Flight 5342.
“I’ll always have them in my head and in my heart,” he said last week.
He is dedicating his performances this week to the memories of everyone on the flight.
‘Quadgod’ jumps to new heights
Malinin, the 20-year-old nicknamed “Quadgod” for his mastery of four-revolution jumps, began this Olympic cycle in 2022 by becoming the first skater to land the only quad that had yet to be done — the Axel.
He didn’t stop there. Malinin continued to make history with unprecedented collections of jumps in his programs. He won last year’s world title by becoming the first skater to land six clean quads in one program and has won eight competitions in a row overall dating to December 2023.
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In his last two competitions, he attempted seven quads in one program. He fell on one each time but still had the layout commemorated on a hoodie.
Malinin said it’s an “ideal goal” to try seven again in Boston.
“We’ll just have to see how I’ll be feeling in that moment, and if it would be worth it to go for that risk or to maybe play it safe,” he said in a virtual press conference.
That led a reporter to tell Malinin that it’s not his style to hold back.
“Well, not all the time,” the skater said, “but I think sometimes, very rare occasions, I’d have to play it safe.”
Amber Glenn is new U.S. women’s star
U.S. figure skating was for so long defined by its leading women, from Peggy Fleming to Dorothy Hamill to Michelle Kwan.
But the last American to win Olympic women’s singles gold was in 2002 (Sarah Hughes). The last to win a world title was in 2006 (Kimmie Meissner).
Enter Glenn.
The 25-year-old Texan won her first senior national title in 2024 on her ninth try over a career defined by hardships. She even briefly left the sport in 2015 at the recommendation of mental health professionals.
Glenn began this season with zero international victories to her name.
She has since won all five of her starts, including the biggest title for any U.S. woman in 14 years at December’s Grand Prix Final, which is often a preview of the following March’s worlds.
Her trademark is the triple Axel. She’s the only woman in the world championships field who has successfully landed the jump this year.
“It has been a whirlwind of a season,” she said after the Grand Prix Final in France. “I kind of struggled with this imposter syndrome. I’m just happy my hard work is finally showing.”
All three U.S. women at worlds are capable of making the podium. Glenn is joined by 2024 silver medalist Isabeau Levito, who missed three months this season due to a foot injury, and 2022 bronze medalist Alysa Liu, who ended a two-year retirement to compete this season.
They’re all looking to dethrone Kaori Sakamoto of Japan, who can become the first woman to win four world titles in a row since American Carol Heiss took five from 1956-60.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates eye ice dance three-peat
Back in 2011, an 18-year-old Chock went looking for a new ice dance partner after her previous partner retired. She spoke to and tried out with several men before ultimately choosing Bates, a 2010 Olympian whose own partnership had just ended.
“Looking back on it, I can’t believe she picked me to skate together,” Bates said in 2023. “I’m sure I would have kept skating (if Chock chose somebody else) because I loved it, but it worked out this way, gratefully.”
Chock and Bates have since made three Olympic teams together, won a record-tying six U.S. ice dance titles and five world championships medals, including gold at the last two.
After getting married last June, these could be the last worlds for Chock and Bates. They’re trying to become the first ice dancers to win three consecutive world titles in 28 years.
Next year, they hope to earn their first Olympic medals of any color in the dance competition, having already won gold in the team event.
What happens in Boston will determine whether they go into the Olympic season as the outright favorites or one of several medal contenders.
This season, Chock and Bates won the biggest event so far — December’s Grand Prix Final — but also were defeated at other events by top couples from Canada and Great Britain.
“We’re going to treat it like it’s our last shot,” Bates said of the next 11 months. “We’ve been doing this for a really long time, both in our 30s. We’re a married couple. There are things in our lives that we would love to also accomplish, like grow a family and things like that.”
