The inaugural ISU World Team Trophy opened Thursday in Tokyo, Japan, with the original dance and the ladies and men's short programs. This new event features the six best figure skating teams of the 2008/09 season which are the USA, Canada, Japan, Russia, France and China.
Each team consists of two men, two ladies, one pair and one ice dance couple. The teams qualified primarily according to the results of the ISU World Figure Skating Championships, the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating and Final plus possibly the ISU European, ISU Four Continents, ISU World Junior Figure Skating Championships and the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating.
Each skater/couple competes with a short program/original dance and free skating/free dance. In each discipline, the top ranked finisher earns 12 points, the second ranked skater/couple receives 11 points and so on. The last ranked single skater gets one point, the last pair/ice dance couple gets 7 points. These points are added to determine the winning team.
Team USA took the lead on the first day with 48 points ahead of the Japanese (43 points) and the Canadian (39 points) teams. Team France ranks fourth (32 points) ahead of Russia (29 points) and China (22 points).
