2025-26 Grand Prix Assignments predictions?

[saine]

Big questionmarks whether You and Hendrickx gets any spots. And the US might give Ziegler one spot instead of Thorngren.

For You, she may use the comeback rule for a spot. Hendrickx will not be eligible for any now that she's out of the top 24 WS, and she isn't eligible to use the comeback rule due to competing at Shanghai Trophy.

I see USFS having a Skate America TBD for the women. I can't see them giving a host spot to Thorngren and not giving a chance to the other women. She had a tough season, I hope she's able to regroup. That would also give Ziegler a chance.

Host spots not included above - Canada +1

Very likely Sara-Maude Dupuis (she will land her 3A there )

Host spots not included above - Canada +2

Aleksa Rakic has the second highest SB of the Canadian men, so I see Skate Canada giving him a spot outright. That leaves Wesley Chiu and Stephen Gogolev. Gogolev is training (thanks Benoit for the info!), so he is a possibility now. I'd do a TBD skate-off, neither had a good season due to injury.

 

[Marty McFlip]

Maybe it's a silly question, but how does it work for the new senior ? Because Jia Shin or Ami Nakai are in senior this season and they have greats scores so they got 1 or 2 spot ? (or it's different on each federation)

 

[FlossieH]

So, things looking more clear now which skaters might get GP assignments.

Women

SB Top 24 - safe bet for 2 spots
Sakamoto, Liu, Kim, Glenn, Chiba, Lin-Gracey, Gubanova, Levito, Petrokina, Higuchi, Nakai, Tennell, Sumiyoshi, Everhardt, Gutmann, Yoshida, Pinzarrone, Matsuike, Watanabe, Repond - Total 40 spots

SB next in line - might get 2 spots
Aoki, Lee, Samodelkina, Shin, Kaiser, Schizas, (Takagi gets no spots as Japan has filled their quota), Yun, Pezzetta, Schild, Medland Spence, Serna - + 22 spots

WS Top 24 not included above - Kurakova - +1 spot
Host spots not included above - Canada +1, France +1, Finland +3, China +3

That is a total of 71, so one spot left and Thorngren is next in line on the SB list.

Big questionmarks whether You and Hendrickx gets any spots. And the US might give Ziegler one spot instead of Thorngren.

--------------------------------------------------

Men

SB Top 24 - safe bet for 2 spots
Malinin, Kagiyama, Shaidorov, Sato, Aymoz, Miura, Siao Him Fa, Brown, Britschgi, Grassl, Cha, Egadze, Yamamoto, Memola, Vasiljevs, Tsuboi, Rizzo, Torgashev, Broussard, Frangipani, Litvintsev, M Selevko, Ma - Total 46 spots

SB next in line - might get 2 spots
Tomono, Sadovsky, Dai, Economides, A Selevko, Hagara, Shimada, Samoilov, Circelli - +18 spots

WS Top 24 not included above - Sanchez - +1
Host spots not included above - Canada +2, China +2, Finland +3

That is a total of 72 spots. Looks like Nordebäck just misses out, maybe Finland can give him one of their host spots? And Sanchez might get two spots as he also is the JGP winner.

It's early days, so a lot can happen. And the host federations can change a lot with their host picks.

For singles it is senior world championships top 12: 2 spots
SB top 24: 1 spot (might get a second spot, but also might not)
WS top 24: 1 spot (might get a second, might not)
Medal at JGP final or Junior Worlds: 1 spot (might get a second, might not)
Top 75 SB and above a minimum score,, but not top 24: will go onto the reserves list. Could get a spot outright on the initial allocation, but unlikely to until all skaters in the groups above get 2 spots, unless a host pick.

 

[FlossieH]

Maybe it's a silly question, but how does it work for the new senior ? Because Jia Shin or Ami Nakai are in senior this season and they have greats scores so they got 1 or 2 spot ? (or it's different on each federation)

Medalists from junior worlds and the JGP final get considered for one spot, and may get a second if there is space - so Jakob Sanchez and Adam Hagara should get at least one spot, as would Jia Shin (Ami Nakai is already eligible via the SB top 24) and the Chinese pair who are expected to move up, and possibly some ice dance teams. I don't follow ice dance closely enough to know who is likely to be moving up.

 

[Jontor]

For singles it is senior world championships top 12: 2 spots
SB top 24: 1 spot (might get a second spot, but also might not)
WS top 24: 1 spot (might get a second, might not)
Medal at JGP final or Junior Worlds: 1 spot (might get a second, might not)
Top 75 SB and above a minimum score,, but not top 24: will go onto the reserves list. Could get a spot outright on the initial allocation, but unlikely to until all skaters in the groups above get 2 spots, unless a host pick.

Yes, and all that criteria is covered in my predictions. The Worlds top 12 all have 2 spots. The SB and WS top 24 all have at least one spot. JGP winner and JW medalists are also in there.
And if you look at the spots given previous seasons, the rest of the spots typically goes in SB ranking order. And that's what I based my predictions on.

 

[Jontor]

Maybe it's a silly question, but how does it work for the new senior ? Because Jia Shin or Ami Nakai are in senior this season and they have greats scores so they got 1 or 2 spot ? (or it's different on each federation)

Ami Nakai is in top SB 24 so she is guaranteed one spot. But the top 24 always end up getting two so for sure she will get two.
Jia Shin are guaranteed one spot because of her Junior Worlds medal. And she is so close to the SB top 24 so I am pretty certain she will get two.

The only thing that might change things for these two skaters is if they choose to stay in junior. But why would they? It is an olympic season next year so they will be eager to try to get there.

 

[Ziotic]

Yes, and all that criteria is covered in my predictions. The Worlds top 12 all have 2 spots. The SB and WS top 24 all have at least one spot. JGP winner and JW medalists are also in there.
And if you look at the spots given previous seasons, the rest of the spots typically goes in SB ranking order. And that's what I based my predictions on.

No it wasn’t, you didn’t have Schizas as having two guaranteed, she was 11th at worlds, thus a guarantee

 

[saine]

I don't follow ice dance closely enough to know who is likely to be moving up.

I think they're all moving up.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

But the top 24 always end up getting two so for sure she will get two.

While this has commonly been the case in the Singles disciplines in recent years, it is not actually guaranteed (And definitely not common in partnered disciplines due to the lower number of spots).
In 2019-20, for example, Serafima Sakhanovich & Yelim Kim only got one GP assignment despite being in the top 24 on the Season's Best list, while Anastasia Gubanova got none. Of course, this was partially due to there just being too many Russians who were guaranteed at least one spot, but Yelim shouldn't have been affected by country-based limits.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

I think they're all moving up.

Can confirm, all three Ice Dance medalists are going senior next season. Wolfkostin/Tsarevski and Grimm/Savitskiy are aging out of juniors, and Tali/Lafornara want to go to the Olympics.

In pairs, Metelkina/Berulava are guaranteed two anyway, but Holichenko/Darenskiy & Zhang/Huang (JGPF champions) will also have to move up to seniors fully. Ariano Kent/Laliberte Laurent are likely staying junior, but I don't think there is any actual confirmation of this yet.

 

[Jontor]

While this has commonly been the case in the Singles disciplines in recent years, it is not actually guaranteed (And definitely not common in partnered disciplines due to the lower number of spots).
In 2019-20, for example, Serafima Sakhanovich & Yelim Kim only got one GP assignment despite being in the top 24 on the Season's Best list, while Anastasia Gubanova got none. Of course, this was partially due to there just being too many Russians who were guaranteed at least one spot, but Yelim shouldn't have been affected by country-based limits.

Yes, but that was 6 seasons ago. For the Russians in 19-20, after they had allocated their top skaters, they still had 4 guaranteed spots and 5 more "guaranteed" skaters. So, they gave Konstaninova 2 and Sotskova, Sakhanovich one spot each. Tarusina and Gubanova got nothing.

Why Yelim Kim didn't get two that year is an anomaly. It was her first senior season so maybe the federation didn't think she was ready?

It hasn't happened since then, and without the Russians that used to take up 25% of the spots, there is very little chance that someone inside the top SB 24 won't get two spots.

 

[TT_Fin]

If Finland does not use all men's host spot they might give one to Kyrylo Marsak who trains in Finland. Kyrylo is 69th at SB list. Finland has enough age eligible national team men, two of them eligible to take part in JGP abd probably will because there are 4 spots in 4 events. Probably Suntsev snd Virtanen - yes, Dr V is still on team list so looks he is in one more season - will get one. Juusola needs to improve from this season IMO to get one.

 

[Tutto]

Off topic, but could someone offer the explanation why Italy does not host a GP - probably the only one of big 'skating' nations?

 

[Marty McFlip]

Off topic, but could someone offer the explanation why Italy does not host a GP - probably the only one of big 'skating' nations?

I don't know if there is a link between that but Italy and Germany got two of the most important early season's challenger series. A lot of top skaters start their season with the Nebelhorn or the Lombardia Trophy so maybe it's a sort of "compensation"

 

[4everchan]

Germany had a gp at some point if I'm not mistaken, before the actual format.

But truly, the six nations of gp, USA, Canada, China, Japan, France and at that point Russia are bigger skating nations traditionally than Italy was back then.

Yes, Italian skating is having a golden age moment, perhaps also due to the Olympics coming up, but since I've been following the sport, I would never have thought of Italy as one of the big six nations to host a gp.

This being said, being a host is costly as well, and perhaps the Italian federation back then, preferred hosting only a challenger. The host nations need more than great skaters, they also need to draw a crowd. Are Italians really supportive of figure skating? I have no idea..

 

[apgold]

Because I'm planning to attend Skate America (now that we finally know the location), out of curiosity I looked up who was entered to compete in 2017 (the last time it was in Lake Placid in an Olympic season).

Surprisingly, several competitors who were there in 2017 are still competing or plan to compete this season: Piper/Paul, Roman, Bradie, Kaori, Maia/Alex, Michael Parsons (with his sister Rachel), and Deanna (when she represented the US with Nate). Also Boyang was there, and I think he didn't compete most of last season due to back issues, so I'm not sure what his plans are.

I wonder of this list who will be back in Lake Placid? I saw Bradie's announcement on social media this past week, so I would think she will be there, it was where she won her first GP medal. I think it would also be fun to see the Shibs back there, as they won the title at that competition.

 

[Tutto]

Germany had a gp at some point if I'm not mistaken, before the actual format.

But truly, the six nations of gp, USA, Canada, China, Japan, France and at that point Russia are bigger skating nations traditionally than Italy was back then.

Yes, Italian skating is having a golden age moment, perhaps also due to the Olympics coming up, but since I've been following the sport, I would never have thought of Italy as one of the big six nations to host a gp.

This being said, being a host is costly as well, and perhaps the Italian federation back then, preferred hosting only a challenger. The host nations need more than great skaters, they also need to draw a crowd. Are Italians really supportive of figure skating? I have no idea..

FS in Italy is certainly bigger than in Finland. And with Russia is out for God knows how long, if I were the Italian Fed I would use the moment to establish themselves on the GP circuit. Yes, as you rightly said there are costs but also opportunities to give chances to own skaters via host pics and such. And with the Olympics approaching there was never a better time... surprised to be honest the chance was not taken.

 

[Marty McFlip]

FS in Italy is certainly bigger than in Finland. And with Russia is out for God knows how long, if I were the Italian Fed I would use the moment to establish themselves on the GP circuit. Yes, as you rightly said there are costs but also opportunities to give chances to own skaters via host pics and such. And with the Olympics approaching there was never a better time... surprised to be honest the chance was not taken.

Probably, but we also need to check if the figure skating hype in Italy will stay after the Olympics. Did the italian state will continue to provide financial assistance for FS ? I really hope they will because the figure skating movement in Italy is very interesting, they are able to be competitiv in all category at European level and sometimes at worlds level (ice danse/Pairs)

 

[throw_triple_flip]

I think Fear and Gibson will want NHK trophy. With the fanbase they have in Japan, it's the closest they can get to skating at a home GP.

 

[Tutto]

Probably, but we also need to check if the figure skating hype in Italy will stay after the Olympics. Did the italian state will continue to provide financial assistance for FS ? I really hope they will because the figure skating movement in Italy is very interesting, they are able to be competitiv in all category at European level and sometimes at worlds level (ice danse/Pairs)

I think it might continue, not only Italy is very much present in ID and pairs, they are able to put out strong enough singles and Italy's bronze at the recent WTT is a proof. Not only that there are some young & exciting skaters coming up e.g Anna Pezzetta - a raw talent which if managed rightly will be a threat (she reminds me so much of Kaetlyn Osmond!)