World champions Alysa Liu and Madison Chock and Evan Bates headline November’s Skate America as figure skating’s Grand Prix Series assignments for the Olympic season have been announced.
The world’s top skaters each compete twice over the six-event regular season in October and November, with the top six per discipline over the series qualifying for December’s Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan.
The Final will be the last gathering of the world’s top skaters before the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.
Liu and Chock and Bates will be joined at Skate America in Lake Placid, New York, by two-time U.S. Olympian Jason Brown.
GRAND PRIX ASSIGNMENTS: Women | Men | Pairs | Ice Dance
This season, Skate America is the fifth of six Grand Prix stops from Nov. 14-16.
The Grand Prix season starts in France from Oct. 17-19, then moves to China, Canada and Japan before Skate America. After Skate America, the last regular season Grand Prix is in Finland.
Two-time world champion Ilia Malinin is entered in the first and third Grand Prix events in France and Canada. He would not compete against world silver and bronze medalists Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan and Yuma Kagiyama of Japan on the Grand Prix before the Final.
Amber Glenn, the two-time U.S. champion who won last season’s Grand Prix Final, is entered in the second Grand Prix in China (along with Liu) and the sixth in Finland.
Ice dancers Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani are set to return to the Grand Prix for the first time in eight years. The 2018 Olympic bronze medalists, who announced a comeback last month, are entered in Grand Prix Japan and Grand Prix Finland.
In pairs, 2022 Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong are set to return to competition for the first time since the Beijing Games.
The U.S. Olympic team of three women’s singles skaters, three men, three ice dance couples and two or three pairs’ teams will be announced after January’s U.S. Championships, taking into account results over the previous year.
