What to Watch as U.S. Skaters Head to First World Championships in Two Years

General information: Full Results | PDF Schedule | ISU Site
How to watch: TV Schedule | Peacock Premium 

One year ago, the  International Skating Union (ISU) World Figure Skating Championships 2020 were canceled, ushering in a year of uncertainty in the figure skating community as the world at large grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Now, in 2021, the pandemic might still be on everyone's minds, but the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2021 are officially a go, with top figure skaters from around the globe converging on Stockholm on March 24-27.
 
The last time a World Championships was canceled was in 1961 following the crash of Sabena Flight 548 that took the lives of the 1961 U.S. World Team. Needless to say, none of today's crop of skaters have experienced a year without a World Championships, and everyone is eager to return to the world stage -- masks, safety protocols, social distancing and all.
 
At stake in Stockholm, beyond just world titles, are Olympic berths. In each discipline, athletes can earn the maximum of three entries should the combined total of the top two placements add up to 13 or less.
 
Here's a look at what to expect from the U.S. delegation:
 
Chen Attempts to Three-peat
 
Each time Nathan Chen takes to the ice these days, he seems to make some sort of history.
 
In Stockholm, the five-time U.S. champion will vie for his third World title.
 
In January, Chen won his 13th consecutive competition when he took the men's title at the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships, becoming the first man since Dick Button (1946-1952) to win five U.S. titles in a row.
 
"It means the world," Chen said after his win. "Dick is a true skating icon, and it just feels incredible to be trying to chase something that someone like that has done. I'm nowhere near the level he's at, but it's just cool to be able to even be mentioned within his sort of realm."
 
This week, Chen will look to become the first U.S. man to win three consecutive World titles since Scott Hamilton accomplished the feat in 1981-83.
 
In order to do so, though, he will have to go through Japan's two-time World champion and two-time reigning Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu. The last time the two faced off, at the Grand Prix Final in 2019, Chen came out on top.
 
"He's really the benchmark, or the standard, of what skating looks like, and he has been for many, many years," Chen said. "It's always an honor for me to compete against him. I'm super excited to push myself to catch up to what he is."
 
Chen will be joined in Stockholm by 2019 World bronze medalist Vincent Zhou, who took silver at the 2021 Toyota U.S. Championships, and 2014 Olympic Team Event bronze medalist Jason Brown, who earned bronze this January in Las Vegas. Both Brown and Zhou have had recent success at ISU Championship events, with Brown earning the silver medal at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships 2020 in Seoul, and Zhou earning the bronze medal at 2019 Four Continents and 2019 Worlds.

Team USA will challenge an international field including Japan's Shoma Uno and Yuma Kagiyama, China's Boyang Jin and Mikhail Kolyada, Athlete of the Figure Skating Federation of Russia (FSR), will also vie for the podium.
 
Knierim and Frazier Make Worlds Debut One Year into Partnership
 
This time last year, Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier had not even announced that they would teamed up yet.
 
Now, after a victory at 2020 Guaranteed Rate Skate America and a win at their first U.S. Championships as a pair, the duo is off to their first World Championships together.
 
Knierim and Frazier are far from green, though: Knierim competed at five World Championships with husband and former partner Chris Knierim, while Frazier and former partner Haven Denney did so in 2015 and 2017.
 
Success has come very quickly for Knierim and Frazier, though the lack of international competitions this season meant that they had to submit video to the ISU last month in order to reach the minimum technical scores required to compete in Stockholm.
 
Their results of 41.67 TES for their short program and 71.85 TES for their free would make them competitive with the best pairs in the world.
 
"We have a lot of cleaning up to do, and there's a lot of things that we can do better," Knierim said at the U.S. Championships. "And we strive for more every day. We want to be among the best in the world, and we have a way to go."
 
Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc will be making their second World Championship appearance after their third-place finish at the U.S. Championships. They previously placed ninth in 2019, which secured two pairs entries for the U.S. in Stockholm.
 
The pairs field at large will be chasing two-time World champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China, as well as Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov (FSR). Other top competitors include China's Chen Peng and Yang Jin, Canada's Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro and Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii (FSR), and Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov (FSR).
 
Together, Knierim and Frazier, and Cain-Gribble and LeDuc will attempt to secure three Olympic berths for the U.S. for the first time since 1994.
 
Hubbell/Donohue and Chock/Bates Vie for Ice Dance Supremacy
 
U.S. ice dance teams are consistently among the very best in the world, having medaled at 13 of the last 15 World Championships and every Olympic Games since 2006.
 
However, no U.S. ice dance team has won a World title since Meryl Davis and Charlie White did so in 2013.
 
That could all change in 2021.
 
Three-time U.S. champions Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue lead the way among U.S. dance teams. In two prior World Championship appearances, Hubbell and Donohue have earned a silver and a bronze medal, and look to add gold to their collection.
 
"We worked really hard this year, and through all the struggles it's actually been a really productive year for us," Hubbell said at the 2021 Toyota U.S. Championships.
 
While Hubbell and Donohue, who also won 2020 Skate America ®, have been frank about their desire to win a World title, Madison Chock and Evan Bates have been right on their heels. Also two-time U.S. champions, they too have a World silver and bronze medal to their resume.
 
Chock and Bates had a more uneven season, as Chock suffered a concussion in an off-ice fall last summer that affected their training time and caused them to withdraw from Skate America®. In their only competition this season, the U.S. Championships, they took silver.
 
"We've been working very hard in training, and putting our best selves on the ice every practice we get the chance," Chock said. "We've just been surrounded by incredible training-mates and supporting team that have helped us navigate through these uncertain times and really come out stronger."
 
U.S. bronze medalists Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker round out the U.S. dance contingent. This will be their third consecutive Worlds appearance.
 
In a field missing four-time World champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France, Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov (FSR), and Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin (FSR) will challenge the U.S. teams on the podium. Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirer, and Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen, as well as Italy's Charlene Guignard and Macro Fabbri also look to take the coveted title.
 
Tennell Returns to Worlds as U.S. Champion
 
The first time Bradie Tennell competed at a World Championships, she did so in 2018 as the reigning U.S. champion and finished sixth.
 
Now three years older and wiser, Tennell is once again the U.S. champion, and will once again be the leading lady for Team USA at the World Championships.
 
In regaining the U.S. title after a two year gap, Tennell became the first woman to do so since World War I.
 
"Winning my title back means everything to me," she said at the time. "It's the driving force behind me waking up to go train every day. They say it's about the journey, not the destination, but the destination feels pretty good, too."
 
Tennell also finished seventh at the World Championships in 2019.
 
She and Karen Chen, who took bronze at the U.S. Championships and placed fourth in her one prior World Championships appearance in 2017, will look to earn three Olympic entries. U.S. ladies had three spots at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, thanks to the joint efforts of Chen and Ashley Wagner, but have since been relegated to just two at the World Championships.
 
To regain three spots, Tennell and Chen take on a trio of Athletes of the Figure Skating Federation of Russia all challenging for the podium; Anna Scherbakova, Alexandra Trusova -- both with quad jumps -- and Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, who competes with a triple Axel. Japan's Rika Kihira also enters the event with a quad in tow.
 
Neither Tennell nor Chen have those technical elements, but Tennell says she pays no mind to what anyone else is doing.
 
"I can only go out there and skate to the best of my ability, the way I am training every day," Tennell said. "If I am so worried about what everyone else is doing, it's not a good mental strategy for me. I am just going to go there and lay down both of my programs to the best of my ability."

NBC will broadcast coverage of the ladies free skate at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 27, followed by a recap show at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 11. There will be an additional 16 hours of competition coverage on NBCSN. Additionally, the full competition can be streamed live at Peacock Premium.