Figure skating world championships preview: Piper and Paul’s last dance and the Quad God’s revenge

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As winter (slowly) winds down, it’s an exciting week for figure skating fans with the world championships beginning Wednesday in Prague. A few stars pulled out after the Olympics, but several juicy storylines remain, and I’ll outline those below. Plus, a scathing report on the Canadian sports system, and an exciting season finale in alpine skiing.

The figure skating world championships in an Olympic year are always a tricky thing. Physically and emotionally exhausted from the intense effort of performing on their sport’s biggest stage, not to mention the months (even years) of preparation for that moment, many of the top skaters choose to call it a season rather than gear back up for another major competition.

This year is no exception, with the gold medallists from three of the four main events in Milan last month skipping this week’s world championships in the Czech capital of Prague. Unfortunately, that list includes effervescent Olympic women’s champion Alysa Liu of the United States, along with surprise men’s champ Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan and pairs winners Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan. French ice dance gold medallists Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron are competing, but American silver medallists Madison Chock and Evan Bates decided to forego a shot at their fourth consecutive world title.

To be honest, for me, the long list of absences tends to cheapen the Olympic-year world championships a bit and can lead to some less-than-fully-deserving medallists. I think a sensible move would be to copy what swimming, track and field and skiing do and simply not hold the world championships in Olympic years.

Having said that, there are still a lot of great skaters competing this week in Prague, and several interesting storylines worth following from both a Canadian and international perspective. Here’s a look at some of them:

Piper and Paul’s last dance?

After reaching the podium at four of the last five world championships, including silvers the past two years in Montreal and Boston, longtime ice dance partners Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier finally achieved their lifelong dream of winning an Olympic medal, taking bronze with a near-flawless performance last month in Milan.

That sets the 34-year-old Canadians up for a pressure-free week at the worlds, which many expect will be the final competition of their career. But, despite hinting that this could be the end, they’ve refused to confirm it. “I think we’re just going to leave it open-ended,” Gilles said. “We just want to go to the world championships, enjoy ourselves, enjoy our skating.”

Gilles and Poirier will be joined by two other Canadian ice dance teams. Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha finished 10th at the Olympics and have placed as high as fifth in their four appearances at the world championships. Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac are making their worlds debut after finishing 14th at the Olympics.

The French duo of Cizeron and the Montreal-born Fournier Beaudry are looking to cap off an incredible first season together that has seen them win Olympic gold, a European championship, a national title and a pair of Grand Prix events. Fournier Beaudry skated for Canada before joining up last March with Cizeron, who won five world titles and the 2022 Olympic gold with his former teammate Gabriella Papadakis. He’s the first ice dancer to win back-to-back Olympic titles with different partners.

In Milan last month, Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron upset Chock and Bates for the gold amid some controversy over the scorecards turned in by a French judge. The Americans then decided to not try for a world-championship four-peat, likely bringing their career to an end. “We left it all on the ice in Milan,” said the 37-year-old Bates. “Our season feels complete.”

Gogolev’s second go

Apart from Gilles and Poirier, the most impressive Canadian figure skater in Milan was 21-year-old Olympic rookie Stephen Gogolev.

Appearing in his first major global competition at the senior level, Gogolev performed like a seasoned vet, earning the second-best score in the men’s free skate to finish a surprising fifth overall — just a little more than a point away from the bronze medal. He also skated very well in the preceding team event, placing third and fourth in his two skates to help Canada finish fifth.

Coming off that promising Olympic debut, Gogolev will now compete in the world championships for the first time.

The Quad God’s revenge

Prediction markets are all the rage these days, but I doubt anyone had the creativity to offer a bet (sorry, a “contract”) on Gogolev to finish ahead of the great Ilia Malinin at the Olympics. But that’s exactly what happened as the Quad God blew a fairly comfortable lead after the short program with a disastrous free skate that dropped him to an inconceivable eighth in the final standings.

To his credit, the 21-year-old Malinin was extremely gracious in the immediate aftermath of the worst moment of his career, going out of his way to let a stunned Shaidorov know that he deserved his gold medal and thoughtfully answering questions from reporters in the mix zone.

Malinin’s remarkably mature handling of such a public-facing humiliation surely won over some fans who might now feel more inclined to root for the American to capture his third consecutive world title at what he has dubbed his “redemption competition.” With Shaidorov out, Malinin’s toughest challengers look to be Japan’s Kagiyama Yuma and Sato Shun, who took silver and bronze in Milan.

Sakamoto’s swan song

With the delightful Olympic and world champion Liu sadly missing from the women’s event, the spotlight shifts to Japanese star Kaori Sakamoto, who’s set to retire at the ripe old age of 25 to pursue a second career in coaching. 

With Russia’s powerful stable of women’s skaters banned from international competition, Sakamoto won three straight world titles from 2022 to 2024, becoming the first women’s singles skater to accomplish that feat since American legend Peggy Fleming in the 1960s. Sakamoto was the runner-up to Liu at last year’s worlds in Boston before taking silver at the Olympics last month, adding to her bronze in 2022, where a pair of Russians topped her.

Japan’s 17-year-old Ami Nakai could challenge Sakamoto for the gold in her worlds debut after taking bronze at the Milan Olympics. Nakai’s breakout season has also included a Grand Prix victory in France and silvers at the Grand Prix Final and the Four Continents championships.

Canada’s lone skater in the women’s event is veteran Madeline Schizas, who’s looking for her first top-10 finish in her sixth appearance at the worlds. She finished 25th at the Olympics.

Pairs title up for grabs

With Miura and Kihara out and Canada’s 2024 world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps recovering from their arduous journey to an 11th-place finish at the Olympics, the pairs event is missing its reigning Olympic champs and the winners of the last three world titles. This opens the door for the likes of Olympic runners-up Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia and bronze medallists Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany, who are each looking to capture their first world-championship gold.

Two Canadian tandems are competing. National champions Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud finished eighth at the Olympics, while Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Ethier are taking the place of Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps after getting the bronze at three straight nationals.

How to watch

You can catch every skate at the world championships live on CBC Gem and the CBC Sports website, beginning with the women’s short program on Wednesday at 6:30 a.m. ET. The pairs short follows at 1:45 p.m. ET, while the men’s event gets going on Thursday and the ice dance on Friday. Competition concludes Saturday, followed by the championship gala on Sunday.