Photo credit Melanie Heaney/U.S. Figure Skating
By Elvin Walker
Photo credit Melanie Heaney/U.S. Figure Skating
It has been a record-breaking week for U.S. Figure Skating at the ISU Figure Skating Championships 2025 in Boston.
After Alysa Liu’s monumental win in the women’s competition yesterday, Madison Chock and Evan Bates successfully defended their ice dance title this afternoon, making it three in a row for the newlyweds. Ilia Malinin also defended his title in the men’s competition, stealing away with his second title by more than 30 points over the rest of the field.
This marks the first time Team USA has won gold in three of the four disciplines at a single World Championships.
As an added bonus, Team USA has the opportunity to field a full team of athletes for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. After securing three berths for the U.S. women yesterday, the ice dancers and men were able to do the same today. Team USA has also earned two berths in the pairs competition and has the opportunity to qualify a third in this autumn’s qualification event in Beijing, China. Should that happen, it will be the first full team of athletes to represent the United States since 1984.
“I’m so incredibly proud of our entire team here at the World Championships,” said Justin Dillon, Senior Director of High Performance at U.S. Figure Skating. “Our team is so supportive of everyone, and so our success is a result of this positive energy and camaraderie. Our performance here in Boston is so motivating, and we are incredibly excited for what’s to come going into the Olympic season.”
In winning their third crown, Chock and Bates, who are the most decorated U.S. ice dance team at the World Championships in history, became the first U.S. ice dance team ever to win three World titles and the first ice dance team to three-peat worldwide since Oksana Grishuk and Evgeni Platov, who won four straight from 1994-97. With three golds, a silver, and two bronze medals, the duo has brought home hardware from half of their dozen appearances in the global championships.
“This has been such a magical week,” Chock said in the post-event press conference. “We had two incredible skates. I could not be prouder of Evan, and I am so grateful for our coaching team and our family and friends who have supported us. It’s certainly not easy to do this and chase your dreams year after year, so we are just grateful and appreciative to everyone who has helped us on this journey.”
Skating to Dave Brubeck’s standard “Take Five,” Chock and Bates performed their flirtatious choreography with a touch of class, seemingly telling their own story as newlyweds taking those first steps in life together as husband and wife. But the program was more than just a glimpse into the couple’s life, it was also jam-packed with technical wizardry, earning the gold medalists the event’s top executed elements score.
Chock and Bates earned Level 4s on two of their lifts, the dance spin and the twizzle sequence, and were one of just a handful of teams in which both dancers earned a Level 3 on the step sequence. They also earned the highest program component scores for their free dance, earning the title by more than five points.
“This (title) definitely feels special,” Chock said. “To do it in front of a home crowd and to have two of our best skates this season, I don’t think that we could have asked for anything better than that.”
Following the competition, Chock and Bates acknowledged the legacy of strong American ice dance teams that paved the way for their successes as Team USA has stood on the podium at Worlds every year the event has been held since 2015.
“The U.S. ice dance trajectory has changed so much starting back with Tanith (Belbin) and Ben (Agosto) winning a world medal back in the early 2000s,” Bates said. “We really got to benefit from training with Meryl (Davis) and Charlie (White) to see, firsthand, what the commitment was to the sport. We saw the way that they handled themselves off the ice, the way they poured themselves into their training, how they carried themselves when they lost, and taught us what it meant to be champions on and off the ice.”
The champions earned 131.88 points in the free dance and finished the competition with an international season’s best 222.06 points.
American silver medalists Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko moved up one spot after the rhythm dance to finish in fifth place, which is their best result in their three World Championships appearances.
“This feels incredible,” Ponomarenko said after their program. “Telling little Anthony five or six years ago that I would be in this position, I don’t think that he would have believed it. It’s special and I have no words right now.”
The rising stars gave a fiery performance to Bizet’s “Carmen Suite” that cast Carreira as the seductive gypsy woman who toys with a young solider, played to perfection by Ponomarenko. As the story unfolded, the balance of power shifted away from Carreira and firmly into the hands of Ponomarenko, which led to the titular character’s ultimate demise.
The duo earned the fourth-highest technical scores of the event, having five of their elements judged as a Level 4, and also notched program component scores that are beginning to challenge the top teams in the world. Carreira and Ponomarenko earned 123.37 points in the free dance and 204.88 points overall, both of which are career international bests.
“We feel really good about it. We actually had to fight a little bit in this performance,” Carreira admitted. “When we got off the ice, we weren’t sure if it was good or not, but everyone said it was, so we’re really happy with how it went. It was definitely a mental fight because we felt a lot of pressure coming into the free dance today, but we had a job to do, and I feel like we did it.”
Caroline Green and Michael Parsons finished in the top 10 at Worlds for the second time, placing ninth overall with their best free dance of the season. The U.S. bronze medalists performed an introspective free dance using Douglas Dare’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” as the main selection for the program. Understanding that choosing such a quiet piece of music was risky, Green and Parson acknowledged that they had to work hard to ensure that the program was authentic and moving.
“I think that it is a commitment to the movement when you skate to this kind of program,” Parsons surmised. “The more committed we are, the more the audience feels like it is genuine, which makes them want to be a part of it. When you can invite the audience onto the ice with you, they can almost breathe with us and feel like they are moving with us to feel like they are on the edge of their seat.”
Green and Parsons were rewarded with five Level 4 elements in the program, propelling the duo to the trifecta of international season’s bests. In addition to eclipsing their previous season’s best in the rhythm dance yesterday, the duo will leave Boston with a new season’s international best of 114.96 points in the free dance and 192.47 points overall.
“The ultimate goal was just to qualify for the World Championships in such a tough field in the U.S, and so, everything else on top of that has just been an extra reward,” Green said. “Finishing in the top 10 is very important for us to represent ourselves and our team in the best way, and to set us up for a strong body of work heading into next season.”
In defense of his title, Malinin made history by becoming the first athlete to land each of the six different quadruple jumps in one program.
His program, set to “I’m Not a Vampire” by Falling in Reverse, was a clinic in how to make something impossible seem easy. The gold medalist opened with the four most challenging quads – the flip, Axel, Lutz and loop, earning nearly 60 points on those four elements alone.
“I’ll spend the offseason trying to master this to make sure that I can be as efficient as I can because for me, I think this is my perfect layout for the Olympics,” Malinin shared. “I really want it to be something that I can complete effortlessly and efficiently with the rest of the components as well.”
Malinin electrified the Boston crowd with his technical prowess and in-your-face style, highlighting an already challenging program with his signature raspberry twist and late program one-footed backflip. Despite his achievements, Malinin was left wanting more, doubling out of a planned seventh quadruple, meant to be in combination with a triple Axel.
“The home crowd was really inspiring for me, and I am glad that I was able to go work out the whole season to get to this moment,” Malinin said. “It means a lot to me, and I really hope that in future seasons, I can really improve and work on the things that I didn’t accomplish today.”
Malinin earned a season’s international best of 208.15 points in his free skate, the only man to break the 200-point barrier this season. He finished with another season’s international best of 318.56 points, which is the best score recorded in the men’s division in international competition this season.
With the gold, the three-time World medalist became the seventh U.S. man to win back-to-back golds at Worlds, joining an elite group: Nathan Chen, Scott Hamilton, Tim Wood, David Jenkins, Hayes Jenkins and Dick Button. Malinin has won every event he’s competed at since the 2023 Grand Prix Final.
Jason Brown rallied to finish in eighth place overall after a riveting free skate to “Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Paert. Always a crowd favorite, the Illinois native had the Boston crowd on his side from the moment his name was announced and rewarded them with a masterpiece of beautiful moments interwoven between flawless technical elements.
“This means so, so much,” Brown shared.” I fell in love with the sport because of the performance aspect – that’s what drew me to it from the get-go. I love competition – it’s what has kept me in the sport for so long. I am constantly trying to improve my artistry and tell different stories, push boundaries and focus on the quality of what I do.”
Brown connected on eight triple jumps in the program, earned Level 4s on each of his spins and netted the top program component scores of the event. For his efforts, the two-time Olympian was rewarded with the fourth-best free skate score of the night and a standing ovation from the packed TD Arena crowd.
“Honestly, I'm still processing what happened,” Brown admitted. “I was just so focused on staying calm, staying in the moment, trusting myself, trusting my training … I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I was so nervous.”
Brown logged a new season’s international best 180.68 points in the free skate and also improved his season’s total score, earning 265.74 points in the competition.
U.S. silver medalist Andrew Torgashev finished in 22nd place after a rough free skate to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.”
“I couldn’t get into my skates today,” Torgashev said. “It was crazy out there. I could barely hear myself think – it was an amazing atmosphere. After the warmup, I retied my skates and just couldn’t feel the ice in the same way as I did. I tried to push though regardless, but I was just a little tight. I wanted to perform well, but I guess I just kind of got overwhelmed.”
Torgashev earned 125.52 points in the free skate and a total of 212.79 points overall.
For full results from the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2025, visit the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2025 Competition Central.
