World Figure Skating Championships return to U.S. one year before Olympics
This year's World Figure Skating Championships are being held in Boston, which makes it the first championship in the U.S. since 2016.
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.
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.
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