BOSTON — We’ve reached the final day of the 2025 world figure skating championships in Boston − and the day that Ilia Malinin will hope to defend his title and cement his place as the man to beat at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Malinin, 20, will be the last person to take the ice at TD Garden tonight for his free skate and entered the day with a lead of roughly three points over Yuma Kagiyama of Japan. The only skater in history to land a quadruple axel in competition, Malinin has not lost a competition in nearly 18 months and will be going for his second consecutive world title.
If Malinin does hang on, it will be the first time the U.S. has won world titles in three figure skating disciplines at the same world championships.
That’s in part because of what happened earlier Saturday. Madison Chock and Evan Bates won their third consecutive world title in ice dance with a magnificent free skate, finishing well ahead of their Canadian rivals, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.
Here’s everything else you need to know from the last day of the world figure skating championships:
Madison Chock, Evan Bates stake claim as 2026 Olympic favorites
If it wasn’t clear already, it’s certainly clear now: Madison Chock and Evan Bates will be the team to beat in ice dance at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
After years of going back-and-forth with Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada, Chock and Bates pulled ahead at last year’s world championships and did the same again this year, wowing the home crowd with their jazz-themed free skate. They won both the rhythm dance and free dance en route to their third consecutive title.
Dune-themed ice dance captivates crowd
As we enter the home stretch of the free dance competition, arguably no program has drawn more of a reaction from the TD Garden crowd than the Dune-themed skate by Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck.
The fiercely energetic performance, which featured costumes remniscient of the recent Dune movies, put the Spanish team atop the leaderboard with a score of 123.71 and left Dieck overcome with emotion on the ice. Smart and Dieck’s program is one of six at these world championships that features music from Dune.
Meanwhile, the American team of Caroline Green and Michael Parsons closed their season with an emotional and elegant performance that brought a score of 114.96. They are on track to finish ninth. Compatriots Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko followed with an even stronger score, of 123.37, and likely will be fifth.
What do the world championships mean for Olympic qualifying?
To put it briefly: They’re significant. Without going into all of the nuances of the International Skating Union’s quota allocation system, skaters’ performances here are earning Olympic spots for their countries. And those countries will then decide who gets to fill those spots at the end of this year or early in 2026. A total of 83 quota spots are at stake across the four disciplines at worlds.
While nobody is technically punching their own Olympic ticket in Boston, there are many cases where that is more or less the case.
Watch Ilia Malinin’s short program, which put him on cusp of repeat
Ilia Malinin, the 20-year-old defending world champion from Vienna, Virginia, has a three-point lead going into tonight’s free skate after a near flawless performance in the short program Thursday.
Skating to the song ‘Running” by American rapper NF, Malinin breezed through his three jumping passes − including a quad lutz-triple toe loop combination. The crowd at TD Garden started cheering about 15 seconds before his program even ended.
His free skate is scheduled for 9:44 p.m. ET tonight and will be broadcast on NBC and Peacock.
World championship figure skating TV schedule
Here is the TV and streaming schedule for the 2025 world figure skating championships Saturday. The entirety of all sessions will be available on Peacock.
1:30 p.m. to 4:50 p.m. ET: Free dance (USA Network coverage begins at 3 p.m.)
6 p.m. to 9:52 p.m. ET: Men’s free skate (NBC coverage begins at 8 p.m.)
Who are the NBC commentators for figure skating?
The portions of the world figure skating championships that are televised on NBC or USA Network will have many of the usual broadcasting voices. Terry Gannon will once again handle play-by-play duties, with Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir offering color commentary. The telecasts will also feature Gabriella Papadakis, a 2022 Olympic gold medalist, as an ice dance analyst, with Andrea Joyce and Adam Rippon as reporters.
When do U.S. figure skaters compete tonight?
Here’s a rundown of when the American skaters will be on the ice tonight.
8:10 p.m. ET: Jason Brown, men’s free skate
8:40 p.m. ET: Andrew Torgashev, men’s free skate
9:44 p.m. ET: Ilia Malinin, men’s free skate
World figure skating championships 2025 results
Here are the standings in each discipline, as of Saturday afternoon.
Ice dance (final)
Madison Chock and Evan Bates, USA: 222.06
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, Canada: 216.54
Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, Great Britain: 207.11
Charlène Guignard and Marco Fabbri, Italy: 206.46
Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko: 204.88
Men’s singles (after short program)
Ilia Malinin, USA: 110.41
Yuma Kagiyama, Japan: 107.09
Mikhail Shaidorov, Kazakhstan: 94.77
Kevin Aymoz, France: 93.63
Shun Sato, Japan: 91.26
Women’s singles (final)
Alysa Liu, USA: 222.97
Kaori Sakamoto, Japan: 217.98
Mone Chiba, Japan: 215.24
Isabeau Levito, USA: 209.84
Amber Glenn, USA: 205.65
Pairs (final)
Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, Japan: 219.79
Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin, Germany: 219.08
Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii, Italy: 210.47
Anastasiia Metelkina and Luke Berulava, Georgia: 202.21
Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, Canada: 199.76