Preview: 2024 Four Continents Championships

China will be hosting the 2024 Four Continents Championships, taking place from January 30 to February 4 in Shanghai. Established in 1999, this Championships was created by the International Skating Union to provide an alternative similar to the European Championships to non-European countries. The four continents that can send teams to the event are the Americas (North and South), Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Fourteen countries will be competing at this year’s Four Continents Championships, with ice dance teams representing seven countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Korea and USA.

The Medal Hunt

The favourite team to win this Championships is the reigning bronze World medallists Piper Gilles & Paul Poirier. This season, the Canadian champions have earned the highest results across the teams competing at this event, including winning both of their Grand Prix assignments and a bronze at the Grand Prix Final. This will be their eight Four Continents Championships, where they hope to add a gold to their bronze and two silver medals previously earned at the event.

Also from Canada will be Laurence Fournier-Beaudry & Nikolaj Sørensen, who withdrew from the National Championships following some news relating to Sørensen, but will be competing for the third time at this event and hope to add a medal to the silver they won last year, and Marie-Jade Lauriault & Romain Le Gac, the silver medallist at Canadian Nationals called to replace Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha, still recovering from an injury that affected Lajoie.

Going straight from U.S. Nationals into this event and fresh off a silver medal will be Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko. They will be competing at their third Four Continents Championships, and already won a bronze medal at their first appearance two years ago.

Also from the USA will be Caroline Green & Michael Parsons, who finished fourth at the National Championships, and Emilea Zingas & Vadym Kolesnik, who replace Madison Chock & Evan Bates after their withdrawal to recover from sickness that affected them during Nationals and to focus on their preparation for Worlds.

Korea’s Hannah Lim & Ye Quan will be competing for the first time at this event and, although in their first year as seniors, they could also pose a threat for a podium finish.

Internal competition for the three Japanese teams competing at this event (Misato Komatsubara & Tim Koleto; Azusa Tanaka & Shingo Nishiyama; Utana Yoshida& Masaya Morita): the Japanese Federation will decide which team will take the available spot to represent Japan at Worlds based on the final placements in this competition.

Event info: Teams have official practices from Tuesday, January 30. The rhythm dance kicks off on Friday, February 02, at 12:30pm (GMT+8); the free dance occurs on Sunday, February 4, at 12:00pm (GMT+8).