ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2024: Dates, TV and Live Stream Schedule
The top figure skaters in the world are converging this week at the Bell Centre in Montreal, where the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships will be taking place. It's the first time the event has been held in Montreal since 1932.
From Wednesday through Sunday, the men, the women and the pairs will all be competing for world titles in both short-program and free-skate events. It's a prestigious honor, considering the lineage of the event can be traced back to 1896.
Here's everything you need to know about this year's edition of the championships.
Broadcast Schedule
Wednesday, March 20
Pairs' Short, noon ET, Peacock
Women's Short, 5 p.m. ET, Peacock
Thursday, March 21
Men's Short, 11:10 a.m. ET, Peacock
Women's Short, 1-3 p.m. ET, USA Network
Men's Short, 3-5 p.m. ET, USA Network
Pairs' Free, 6:10 p.m. ET, Peacock
Pairs' Free, 8-10 p.m. ET, USA Network
Friday, March 22
Rhythm Dance, 11:20 a.m. ET, Peacock
Women's Free, 6 p.m. ET, Peacock
Women's Free, 8-10 p.m. ET, USA Network
Saturday, March 23
Free Dance, 1:30 p.m. ET, Peacock
Free Dance, 3-5 p.m. ET, USA Network
Men's Free, 6 p.m. ET, Peacock
Men's Free, 8 p.m. ET, NBC
Sunday, March 24
Exhibition Gala, 2 p.m. ET, Peacock
Men's Singles
From 2018-21, Nathan Chen (United States) won three consecutive world titles in the men's singles competition. (The 2020 event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.) Now, Shoma Uno of Japan will have an opportunity for a three-peat of his won.
After winning the men's singles championship in both 2022 and 2023, Uno is looking for another title victory this year. The 26-year-old is among the favorites to win, as he's fresh off a victory in the Japan Figure Skating Championships in December.
Uno's primary competitor for the crown will be Ilia Malinin. He's a 19-year-old American who has the ability to land a quadruple axel. He fell while attempting the move at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating final in December, yet he still won the gold over Uno.
It will be exciting to watch Uno and Malinin face off again, and the competition could go either way. But it would be surprising if one of the two doesn't win this year's world title.
Women's Singles
Japan's Kaori Sakamoto is the heavy favorite to win the women's singles title this year. It would be her third in a row, as the 23-year-old won the first two world championships of her career in 2022 and 2023.
There hasn't been a skater to win three straight women's singles titles since American Peggy Fleming, who won every year from 1966-68. So Sakamoto has the opportunity to accomplish a rare feat for the women's side of the event.
Sakamoto won gold medals at both the Grand Prix of Figure Skating and the Japan Figure Skating Championships in December. So she appears to be in strong form as she heads to Montreal for the world championships.
One competitor to watch could be Loena Hendrickx of Belgium. Although the 24-year-old has never won a world title, she earned the silver medal at this event in 2022 and the bronze medal in 2023.
Pairs
The favorite to win the pairs title is likely the Japanese duo of Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara. They won the gold medal at last year's event to capture their first world championship, a year after they finished second to the United States' Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier (the 2023 silver-winning duo that won't be competing this year).
Miura and Kihara will try to become the first pair to win consecutive world titles since Canada's Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford in 2015 and 2016.
A new pair to watch will be Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia. Metelkina (19) and Berulava (21) don't have a ton of experience skating together, but they've each fared well on the junior circuit in recent years.