Midseason 2024-2025 Catch-Up
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. A warm and delightful performance from Nobunari Oda left him in a shocking fourth place — after which he officially retired at age 37!
Landing in 7th was a highly disappointing Shun Sato, whose remarkable season before nationals carried him to still making the World team, as Rio Nakata will be going to Junior Worlds.
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.
Since Shimada will be headed to Junior Worlds, the fourth place Mone Chiba, who has also had a remarkable season, will also be going to Worlds in Boston.
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. In third was Gabriele Frangipani, but it was two-time Italian champion, Matteo Rizzo, who got the nod for Europeans after coming in 4th.
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. Note they will not be eligible for the Team competition at the Olympics regardless of if they qualify for all four other events.
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!
Chapters
0:00 — Intro
3:54 — Japanese Nationals
4:25 — Japanese Men’s Competition
11:12 — Japanese Women’s Competition
16:22 — Japanese Pairs and Ice Dance
17:16 — French Nationals
20:50 — Italian Nationals
25:53 — ISU Russia decision
31:34 — Ava Marie Ziegler out of US Nationals
33:03 — Deanna Stellato-Dudek citizenship
33:59 — Wrap-Up
