2025 Year End Figure Skating News and Review
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As 2025 comes to a close, we catch up on a bunch of last minute figure skating news: citizenships, announcements, Olympic teams, a combined ISU Worlds event (?), and much more. We also recap our top Gold in Our Hearts moments for the year. And we share our appreciation for our listeners and community, including a particularly touching Christmas Eve message from an audience member. Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:49 We'll be at US Nationals! 00:04:37 Skating News 00:20:50 ISU Combined Worlds Events 00:32:01 Four Continents announcements 00:43:30 Listener support and Poetry! 00:48:22 2025 Gold in...
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Japanese Nationals 2025 RECAP
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All-Japan Championships 2025 gave us an Olympics-worthy collection of amazing performances — including final competitive skates from several of our favorite athletes. Kaori Sakamoto and Yuma Kagiyama clinched their Olympic spots, and Yuna Aoki gave two of the finest programs of any skater this season. We also talk about the results of the French and Italian nationals events, including their locks for Olympic teams. Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:10 Women's Event 00:33:07 Men's Compeititon 00:44:32 Pairs Compeition 00:47:14 Ice Dance Competition 00:52:09 French Nationals 00:58:44...
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Japanese Nationals 2025 Preview and Junior Grand Prix Final Recap
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We preview the All-Japan Figure Skating Championships (Japanese Nationals) and its hotly contested Olympic team outcomes. We also look back at the Junior Grand Prix Final, particularly the very exciting junior women’s event. Golden Spin 2025 receives a recap as well, along with a number of other smaller federation national championships. As mentioned in the episode, here is Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:06 J-Nats Women’s Competition 00:11:59 J-Nats Men's Competition 00:16:16 J-Nats Pairs Competition 00:17:34 J-Nats Ice Dance Competition 00:20:19 French Nationals 00:24:21 Italian Nationals...
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Grand Prix Final 2025 RECAP
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The Grand Prix Final in Japan took us on a rollercoaster of emotions. Ilia Malinin shattered his own world record. Alysa Liu is golden once again. The pairs competition was outstanding. And ice dance somehow managed to generate even more controversy, outcry, and shocking twists. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 03:34 — Pairs Competition 04:22 — Miura and Kihara 08:17 — Conti and Macii 12:41 — Hase and Volodin 15:32 — Metelkina and Berulava 18:50 — Pavlova and Svietchenko 20:10 — Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps 23:45 — Women's Competition 24:36 — Alysa Liu 29:24 — Ami Nakai 33:41 —...
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Grand Prix Final 2025 PREVIEW
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We get ready for the 2025 Grand Prix Final with a rundown of all the competitors across the 4 disciplines, comparing their scores and performances so far this season, and making our (highly dubious) podium predictions. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:58 — Men's Competition 19:09 — Men's Podium Predictions 20:47 — Pairs Competition 34:09 — Pairs Podium Predictions 35:39 — Women's Competition 52:57 — Women's Podium Predictions 56:16 — Ice Dance Competition 1:21:20 — Ice Dance Podium Predictions 1:22:59 — Other Skating News 1:24:23 — Talinn Trophy 1:28:00 — South Korean Ranking...
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Finlandia Trophy 2025 Recap — ISU Figure Skating Grand Prix Series
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The final 2025 Grand Prix qualifier event provided a terrific women’s competition, more judging controversies in ice dance, plus blood, tears, and several truly memorable, beautiful performances. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 0:31 — Dance Scoring Controversy 19:47 — Errors and Incompetency 21:21 — Ice Dance Competition 47:50 — Ice Dance GPF Qualifiers 49:47 — Men's Competition 1:02:54 — Men's GPF Qualifiers 1:03:38 — Pairs Competition 1:12:21 — Pairs GPF Qualifiers 1:14:27 — Women's Competition 1:29:00 — Women's GPF Qualifiers 1:30:32 — Gold in our Hearts 1:32:04 — Warsaw...
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Skate America 2025 Recap (Figure Skating Grand Prix Series)
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The penultimate Grand Prix Qualifier, Skate America, featured a hotly contested women’s podium, some spectacular ice dance performances, numerous disasters in pairs, and a surprisingly weak men’s event. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:44 — Women’s Competition 1:51 — Alysa Liu vs Rinka Watanabe 4:56 — Anastasiia Gubanova vs Lara Naki Gutman 7:06 — Starr Andrews 10:00 — Top 5 score comparisons 11:31 — Chaeyeon Kim 12:21 — Lea Serna 12:43 — Haein Lee 14:31 — Hana Yoshida 15:11 — Ekaterina Kurakova 15:49 — Wakaba Higuchi 17:47 — Josephine Lee 18:26 — Pairs Competition...
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NHK Trophy 2025 Recap
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Kaori Sakamoto reigned supreme at her final NHK Trophy competition! The Japanese Grand Prix event gave us exciting podium wins, surprise come-ups, frightening injuries, and a disappointing debut from the returning Shib Sibs. #FigureSkating #GPfigure Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:33 — Women's Competition 1:50 — Kaori Sakamoto 5:52 — Sofia Samodelkina 7:55 — Loena Hendrickx 10:34 — Young You 14:05 — Sarah Everhardt 16:29 — Yuna Aoki 19:23 — Anna Pezzetta 20:02 — Wakaba Higuchi 21:17 — Elyce Lin-Gracey 22:17 — Canadian Women / Ice Challenge 24:18 — Ice Dance Competition 25:25...
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Skate Canada 2025 Recap
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The third stop on the Grand Prix series gave us a bombastic new world record from Ilia Malinin, a shaky win from Gilles and Poirier, some pleasant surprises in pairs, and a charming trio of medal-winners in the women’s event. Plus more frustrating judging, and potentially racist kiss ’n cry fan gifts. Chapters 0:00 — Intro 1:57 — Men's Competition 21:39 — Ice Dance Competition 52:34 — Women's Competition 1:10:06 — Pairs Competition 1:18:20 — Racist Kiss 'n Cry fan gifts? 1:23:22 — Gold in our Hearts 1:24:53 — NHK Trophy Preview 1:29:13 — Wrap-Up
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Cup of China 2025 Recap (Figure Skating Grand Prix Series)
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The second Grand Prix event of 2025 featured the return of Olympic champions Sui & Han, exciting wins from Amber Glenn and Shun Sato, and a nervous victory for Chock & Bates. Plus more questionable judging, and a kiss ’n cry controversy. Chapters 1:37 — Women's Competition 24:10 — Pairs Competition 39:16 — Men's Competition 57:21 — Ice Dance Competition 1:21:45 — Final thoughts on Cup of China 1:22:25 — Gold in our Hearts 1:23:42 — Skate Canada Preview 1:26:23 — Wrap-Up #figureskating #gpfigure #cupofchina #figureskatingpodcast
info_outlineIn our first episode of 2025, we catch up on all things figure skating since the Grand Prix Final, including national championships in Japan, France, and Italy, plus other news.
After a short winter’s nap, we’re back in 2025 and catching up on a lot of National competitions that have happened since the Grand Prix Final.
Japanese Figure Skating Championships 2024
To no one’s surprise, Yuma Kagiyama was formally crowned Japan’s next great legend as he won his first national title. Much more surprising was the rest of the strong men’s field, which greatly underperformed. Up-in-coming junior star, Rio Nakata, took silver and a surprising bronze went to Tatsuya Tsuboi.
On the Women’s side, Kaori Sakamoto reminded us all of her brilliance after a disappointing Grand Prix Final and performed two excellent programs that earned her a fifth national title. The reigning queen of juniors, Mao Shimada, came in a strong second and the surging Wakaba Higuchi continued her comeback in taking bronze — and a spot on the world team with Sakamoto.
French National Championships 2025
The story of these games was the continued comeback of Kevin Aymoz, who went from 7th last year after a devastating free skate to winning his 6th national title this year. Adam Siao Him Fa remained MIA due to continued injury, though did claim a spot on the Europeans team where we’ll see him and Aymoz.
Italian Nationals 2025
Both Conti & Macii in Pairs and Guignard & Fabbri in Dance continued to show their dominance at home — winning their disciplines by 33 and 46 points over their closest competitors, respectively.
A much closer competition was the men’s, where we saw Daniel Grassl take his fifth national title over last year’s winner, Nikolaj Memola — who won the free skate, but was too far behind to catch Grassl after the short program.
Other Skating News
The ISU’s decision to allow Russia and Belarus to each nominate one female, one male, one pair team, and one ice dance team for the Olympic Qualifying competition means we very well may be seeing Russians competing internationally at the Olympic Games.
Lastly, we want to wish a big and loud CONGRATULATIONS to both Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Allison Reed — who each received their respective citizenship to Canada and Lithuania recently. We cannot wait to see you both at the 2026 Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina!