2014 World Figure Skating Championships


The 2014 World [Figure Skating Championships] was an international figure skating competition held in Saitama, Japan, at the Saitama Super Arena from March 24 to 30. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing. The event also determined the number of entries a country may send to the 2015 World Championships.

Records

The following new ISU best scores were set during this competition:
EventComponentSkatersScoreDateRef
LadiesShort program

Qualification

All skaters that represent an ISU member nations and reached the age of 15 before 1 July 2013 were eligible to compete at the World Championships. National associations select entries according to their own criteria but the ISU rules mandate that their athletes must have achieved the required minimum technical score at an international event prior to the World Championships in order to be eligible to contest this event.

Number of entries per discipline

Based on the results of the 2013 World Championships, each ISU member nation was allowed to send one to three entries per discipline.

Entries

All of the 2013 World champions were absent but the 2014 Olympic men's champion Yuzuru Hanyu, pairs medalists Ksenia Stolbova / Fedor Klimov and Aliona Savchenko / Robin Szolkowy, and ice dancing bronze medalists Elena Ilinykh / Nikita Katsalapov, as well as several team medalists, including Yulia Lipnitskaya, competed in Saitama.
Member nations announced the following entries:
CountryMenLadiesPairsIce dancing
Brooklee HanDanielle O'Brien / Gregory Merriman
Viktor PfeiferKerstin FrankMiriam Ziegler / Severin Kiefer
Julia Zlobina / Alexei Sitnikov
Jorik HendrickxKaat Van Daele
Maria Paliakova / Nikita BochkovViktoria Kavaliova / Yuri Bieliaiev
Elizaveta Makarova / Leri Kenchadze
Kevin Reynolds
Elladj Baldé
Nam Nguyen		Kaetlyn Osmond
Gabrielle Daleman		Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford
Kirsten Moore-Towers / Dylan Moscovitch
Paige Lawrence / Rudi Swiegers		Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje
Alexandra Paul / Mitchell Islam
Piper Gilles / Paul Poirier
Yan HanLi ZijunPeng Cheng / Zhang Hao
Sui Wenjing / Han Cong
Tomáš VernerEliška BřezinováGabriela Kubová / Matěj Novák
Justus StridAnita MadsenLaurence Fournier Beaudry / Nikolaj Sørensen
Viktor RomanenkovJelena GlebovaNatalja Zabijako / Alexandr ZaboevIrina Shtork / Taavi Rand
Juulia TurkkilaHenna Lindholm / Ossi Kanervo
Chafik BesseghierMaé-Bérénice MéitéVanessa James / Morgan Ciprès
Daria Popova / Bruno Massot		Nathalie Péchalat / Fabian Bourzat
Gabriella Papadakis / Guillaume Cizeron
Angelina Telegina / Otar Japaridze
Peter LiebersNathalie WeinzierlAliona Savchenko / Robin Szolkowy
Maylin Wende / Daniel Wende		Tanja Kolbe / Stefano Caruso
Nelli Zhiganshina / Alexander Gazsi
HKGHUNISRITAJPNKAZLTUMONNORPHIPOLROMRUSSVKKORESPSWESUITURUKRUSAUZB

Schedule

All dates/times are listed as local time in Japan. The Western hemisphere saw some of the events on the previous day, due to the time zone difference.

Overview

Japan was named as the host in June 2011. Saitama was confirmed as the city in February 2013.
Olympic bronze medalists, Aliona Savchenko / Robin Szolkowy of Germany, took the lead in the pairs' short program, two points ahead of Canada's Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford, who edged Olympic silver medalists Ksenia Stolbova / Fedor Klimov of Russia by under a point. Savchenko/Szolkowy ranked first in the free skating by a six-point margin and won their fifth World title by an overall margin of nearly nine points. Stolbova/Klimov were awarded their first World medal, silver, finishing five points ahead of Duhamel/Radford. The latter pair outscored fellow Canadians Kirsten Moore-Towers / Dylan Moscovitch for the bronze for the second year in a row.
Japan's Tatsuki Machida ranked first in the men's short program, with Spain's Javier Fernández and 2014 Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu in second and third respectively. Hanyu placed first in the free skating and won his first World title. Silver went to Machida, finishing 0.33 of a point behind Hanyu. Finishing six points back, Fernández won his second World bronze medal.
The ice dancing event was closely contested. Two points separated the top four in the short dance. 2014 European champions, Anna Cappellini / Luca Lanotte of Italy, took the lead, outscoring Canada's Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje by 0.5 and France's Nathalie Pechalat / Fabian Bourzat by 1.5. Slightly under three points separated the top four in the free dance and the overall scores were even closer. Cappellini/Lanotte became the second Italian ice dancers to win the World title, finishing 0.02 of a point ahead of silver medalists Weaver/Poje and 0.06 ahead of Pechalat/Bourzat, who won their second World bronze medal. 2014 Olympic bronze medalists, Elena Ilinykh / Nikita Katsalapov of Russia, placed first in the segment but finished off the podium, just 1.05 behind the gold medalists.
2008 and 2010 World champion, Mao Asada of Japan, broke the previous world record set by Kim Yuna in the short program, scoring 78.66, 1.42 points ahead of the 2012 World champion, Carolina Kostner of Italy, and 4.12 ahead of the 2014 European champion, Yulia Lipnitskaya. Asada also placed first in the free skating by a margin of five points. Lipnitskaya and Anna Pogorilaya, both 15-year-old Russians, were second and third respectively and Kostner placed sixth in the segment. Asada won her third world title by a total margin of 9.19 points, Lipnitskaya was awarded the silver medal in her first appearance at the World Championships, and Kostner took the bronze, her sixth World medal.

Medals summary

Medalists

Medals for overall placement:
Small medals for placement in the short segment:
Small medals for placement in the free segment:

Medals by country

Table of medals for overall placement: