Overview
- The championships begin Wednesday, March 25, in Prague with every program streaming on Peacock and TV windows on USA Network, NBC and DirecTV.
- Ilia Malinin, a two‑time defending world champion, returns from his Olympic collapse seeking a third straight title against Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato, with Olympic winner Mikhail Shaidorov skipping Worlds.
- With Alysa Liu out after her post‑Olympic surge, Kaori Sakamoto enters as favorite for a fourth world crown in her career finale, with American Amber Glenn among the medal threats.
- Ice dance features Olympic champions Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, while U.S. stars Madison Chock and Evan Bates sit out, leaving Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier in close pursuit.
- Pairs lacks Olympic winners Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, making Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava and Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin the frontrunners in a field thinned by the ISU ban on Russian and Belarusian skaters.