World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates are set to compete at least one more season, signing up for October’s Skate America and another Grand Prix event in Finland in November.
Chock and Bates as well as fellow U.S. champions Ilia Malinin (world bronze medalist) and Isabeau Levito (fourth at worlds) are the headliners for Skate America, which kicks off the six-event Grand Prix Series leading up to December’s Grand Prix Final, which takes the top six per discipline from the series and is often a preview of March’s world championships.
Chock and Bates said before last March’s worlds that they were undecided on competing next season. Then they became the oldest world ice dance champions in history (30 and 34 years old), taking their first world title in their 12th season together.
U.S. pairs’ champions Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier, world gold and silver medalists the last two years, are not entered in any Grand Prix events but could still be added to Skate America. Knierim and Frazier said last season that it would probably be their last as competitors, but they have not announced their plans since last March’s worlds.
GRAND PRIX ASSIGNMENTS: Men | Women | Pairs | Ice Dance
Two-time U.S. Olympian Jason Brown is not entered in a Grand Prix but is planning to compete at the national championships in January, similar to his schedule last season, a rep said.
Japan won the men’s, women’s and pairs’ events at March’s worlds, and all of those gold medalists are entered in the Grand Prix Series -- Shoma Uno, Kaori Sakamoto and the pairs’ team of Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara.
As expected, 2022 Olympic gold medalists Nathan Chen, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China and Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France are not entered in any events. None of those skaters competed last season.
Also of note, ice dancers Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin are not on the assignments.
Davis and Smolkin finished 14th at the 2022 Olympics for the Russian Olympic Committee team. Earlier this month, Georgia’s skating federation posted that Davis and Smolkin would be on its national team in the 2023-24 season with the opportunity to compete at January’s European Championships.
The International Skating Union has not commented on the status of Davis and Smolkin.
Russian skaters have been banned from international competition since March 2022 due to the war in Ukraine.