You’d think a city like Boston, with all its sports history, wouldn't be surprised by a few skaters on ice. But the vibe at the TD Garden last March was something else entirely. Honestly, the worlds figure skating boston event in 2025 wasn't just another competition; it was a high-stakes, emotional pressure cooker that basically set the stage for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
If you weren't there, or if you only caught the highlights on Peacock, you might think it was just about Ilia Malinin landing a bunch of quads. Sure, that happened. But there was a lot more going on under the surface—from a massive comeback that nobody saw coming to a local tragedy that cast a long shadow over the opening ceremonies.
The Quad God vs. Reality at TD Garden
Ilia Malinin. You’ve heard the name. He calls himself the "Quad God," and frankly, after what he pulled off in Boston, it's hard to argue. But what most people get wrong is the idea that he’s just a jumping machine.
In the 2025 free skate, Malinin didn't just land six quadruple jumps. He looked like he actually enjoyed the skating part for once. His score of 318.56 was huge, but it wasn't a world record—he’d actually scored higher in Montreal the year before. However, the energy in Boston was different. It felt like a coronation.
The real shocker in the men's event wasn't Ilia, though. It was Mikhail Shaidorov from Kazakhstan. The kid took silver! He landed a triple Axel-quad toeloop combination that made the coaches in the front row literally double-take. He pushed Yuma Kagiyama—the Olympic silver medalist—down to the bronze. People didn't expect Shaidorov to be the one challenging the status quo, but that’s the beauty of Worlds.
The Alysa Liu Comeback No One Predicted
If you followed skating a few years ago, you remember Alysa Liu retired at 16. Just done. Gone. Then, she basically says, "Kinda kidding," and comes back for the 2024-25 season.
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Going into the worlds figure skating boston competition, the narrative was all about Amber Glenn or Kaori Sakamoto. Sakamoto was trying to win her fourth straight world title. That hasn't been done since the 1950s.
Instead, Alysa Liu happened.
She won. Gold. In her comeback season.
It was surreal. She didn’t have a triple Axel in this program, but she didn’t need it. Her technical precision was so high that she edged out Sakamoto by a hair. Sakamoto took silver, and Mone Chiba took bronze. The US women actually crushed it overall—Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn both finished in the top five. It was the first time in nearly twenty years an American woman stood on top of that podium.
Why This Event Was Different: The Weight of History
Boston has this weird, deep connection to figure skating tragedy and triumph. The Skating Club of Boston is legendary—it’s where Dick Button and Tenley Albright trained. But it’s also the club that lost nearly its entire elite roster in the 1961 Sabena Flight 548 crash.
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The 2025 event had its own heavy heart. Just weeks before the championships, a mid-air collision over the Potomac River killed several junior skaters and coaches from the Skating Club of Boston.
The opening ceremony wasn't the usual glitz and glamour. It was a memorial. You had Governor Maura Healey and Mayor Michelle Wu there, and the silence in the TD Garden was heavy. It made the performances feel more like a tribute than a trophy hunt. When local pairs team Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov took the ice—they train right in Norwood—the crowd didn't just cheer; they roared.
Ice Dance and Pairs: The Battle of the Veterans
In Ice Dance, Madison Chock and Evan Bates did what they do best. They won their third straight World title. They’re married now, which adds a whole "romance on ice" layer that the commentators love, but their skating is just fundamentally better than everyone else's right now.
They beat Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier from Canada, who have been chasing them for years. It was close, though. Like, "don't blink or you'll miss the point deduction" close.
The Pairs event was arguably the most technical of the week. Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara from Japan took the gold, but only by 0.71 points over the German team, Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin.
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Quick Results Summary (Top 3)
- Men: 1. Ilia Malinin (USA), 2. Mikhail Shaidorov (KAZ), 3. Yuma Kagiyama (JPN)
- Women: 1. Alysa Liu (USA), 2. Kaori Sakamoto (JPN), 3. Mone Chiba (JPN)
- Pairs: 1. Miura/Kihara (JPN), 2. Hase/Volodin (GER), 3. Conti/Macii (ITA)
- Ice Dance: 1. Chock/Bates (USA), 2. Gilles/Poirier (CAN), 3. Smart/Dieck (ESP)
What This Means for the 2026 Olympics
The worlds figure skating boston results basically decided who gets to go to Milan-Cortina. Because the US men and women did so well, they secured three spots for the Olympics.
If you’re a casual fan, here’s the takeaway: the US is actually the dominant force in skating right now. For years it was Russia (who are still banned) or Japan. But with Malinin, Liu, and Chock/Bates, the US took three out of four golds in Boston.
Practical Tips for Skating Fans
If you're looking to follow the sport now that the Boston dust has settled, keep these things in mind:
- Watch the "Season Best" scores: Total points matter, but look at the technical score (TES) vs. the program component score (PCS). Malinin wins on TES, but Kagiyama usually beats him on PCS.
- Follow the Skating Club of Boston: They host "Ice Chips," which is the longest-running ice show in the world. Many of the skaters you saw at Worlds perform there.
- Check Peacock: Since NBC owns the rights, Peacock is basically the only place to watch the full replays of the 2025 championships if you want to see the lower-ranked skaters who didn't make the TV broadcast.
To stay ahead of the curve for the 2026 Olympics, you should track the Grand Prix series starting in October. The results from Boston have shifted the world rankings, meaning the "seeding" for the upcoming season will put skaters like Mikhail Shaidorov in the final groups—putting more pressure on the favorites to stay clean. Keep an eye on the ISU (International Skating Union) official bio pages for updated program music, as many skaters are currently reworking their choreography to match the high components scores we saw in Boston.