Part One of our World Figure Skating Championships 2024 preview focuses on the deep field of the Women’s event, and the volatile and unpredictable Pairs competition. We also discuss the controversial Ice Dance Rhythm Dance themes for the next two seasons, Audrey Shin’s move to Pairs, and Ilia Malinin’s practice 4T+4A sequence.

 

The 2024 World Figure Skating Championships are so close we can smell the Montreal bagels — which means it’s a good time for us to start talking about the biggest competition of the year!

In this episode, we’re focusing on the Women’s and Pairs events — which both start on Wednesday, March 20th and promise to serve up some surprises.

Women’s Competition Preview

For all that this field has a few clear standouts, it also has a deep pool of talent standing right behind them ready to step forward.

Kaori Sakamoto — the reigning two time World Champion from Japan — comes in as the favorite, but not an untouchable one. While she’s had a very strong, consistent season and garnered the highest score of any women this year, Belgium’s Loena Hendrickx isn’t far behind.

Loena has two Worlds medals, but neither of them are gold. We expect she’ll be vying for a spot on the podium and — if she can skate cleanly — maybe even in the hunt for the top spot.

Right behind these two powerful medal favorites fighting for gold are two more young Japanese favorites, Mone Chiba and Hana Yoshida, who will definitely be in the hunt. South Korea’s Chaeyeon Kim, Georgia’s Anastasiia Gubanova, Belgium’s Nina Pinzarrone, and the two American women — Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito — are all also capable of taking a medal.

Not completely out of consideration is last year’s World Silver medalist, Haein Lee from South Korea, who’s had a rough season but is entirely capable of pulling off an upset if she’s at her best.

Considering there’s even more great talent not named above that will be giving their all in Montreal, this has the potential to be the best women’s event we’ve seen since the Beijing Olympics. 

Pairs Competition Preview

The pairs discipline has been a bit of a wild ride this season. From super high highs (looks at you, Deanna and Maxine) to fairly disappointing lows (sadly thinking of the US Nationals right now), we’re unsure what to think — but definitely hoping for a big, bold battle for the podium here.

If they are at even close to their best, Canada’s Deanna Stellato-Dudek & Maxime Deschamps will be the class of this field. Whether that translates to gold or not will likely be based on how clean they are and how strong teams like Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase & Nikita Volodin and reigning World Champs, Japan’s Riku Miura & Ryuichi Kihara skate. 

Italy also has two powerful, if inconsistent, teams that could definitely be in the medal mix in newly crowned European champions, Lucrezia Beccari & Matteo Guarise and last year’s World bronze medalists, Sarah Conti & Niccolo Macii.    

Also in the conversation, 2024 World Junior Champions from Georgia, Anastasiia Metelkina & Luka Berulava may have faltered at their past two competitions, but are not to be underestimated. 

And don’t discount last year’s fifth place finishers, Emily Chan & Spencer Akira Howe from the US. We haven’t seen them much this season due to a injury, but what we did see was noteworthy enough to keep an eye on them for a top 5 finish again.

There’s at least five other teams that could pull off an upset based on what we’ve seen this season, so we recommend to expect the unexpected in this discipline in Montreal.

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