Japan’s Satoko Miyahara opens her bid for a first gold at the season-opening ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating event Skate America in Milwaukee on Friday in a field that includes US hope Gracie Gold and Russia’s Julia Lipnitskaya.
With former three-time world champion Mao Asada making her return to competition this season, the 17-year-old Miyahara will be looking to set herself up as a challenger to the 25-year-old Japanese superstar.
Asada, who took a year out after winning a third world title, will begin her Grand Prix campaign at the Cup of China from November 6-8 and will also compete in the NHK Trophy in Nagano from November 27-29.
In her absence, Miyahara took silver in the world championships in Shanghai in March behind Russia’s Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and has been assigned Skate America and the NHK Trophy as her two events in the six-leg Grand Prix series.
Miyahara, who finished runner-up behind Asada in the Japan Open earlier this month, will be among three Japanese women competing in Wisconsin along with Haruka Imai, 22, and Miyu Nakashio, 19.
With the world championships taking place in her native Boston from March 28 to April 3, Gold will be determined to get the season back on track after stumbling to last in the six-skater Japan Open.
Lipnitskaya, 17, will be looking to recapture her form of the Olympic season which saw her win the European title and team gold in Sochi in 2014 but struggle to ninth at nationals last season.
Young Kazakh skater Elizabet Tursynbaeva could also challenge after winning gold in this month’s Autumn Classic in Canada.
In the men’s field, Kazakhstan’s Olympic bronze medallist Denis Ten is the top-ranked skater, although his coach Frank Carroll has said he is struggling with groin and hip problems.
“Of course, he is doing the best he can, but at the moment he’s not up to snuff,” said Carroll.
US champion Jason Brown will square off against Japan’s world junior champion Shoma Uno, 17, who defeated Spain’s world champion Javier Fernandez to win the Japan Open.
China’s Han Yan, Russia’s Konstantin Menshov and Max Aaron, the 2013 US champion, are also among the challengers.
Russia’s Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov, the 2014 Olympic and world pairs silver medallists, will compete this weekend along with world silver medallists Sui Wenjing and Han Cong of China.
– Returning —
Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan gets his season underway at Skate Canada from October 30 to November 1, and will also compete in the NHK Trophy as Sochi silver medallist Patrick Chan of Canada returns after skipping the post-Olympic season along with Olympic women’s champion Adelina Sotnikova.
Chan will compete at Skate Canada and the Trophee Bompard in France, two events which will also see women’s world champion Tuktamysheva, with Sotnikova at the Cup of Russia.
World pairs champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford of Canada will compete in Skate Canada and the NHK Trophy.
Ice dance world champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France, whose season has been thrown into turmoil after Papadakis suffered concussion in a training accident, are entered in the Trophee Bompard and the NHK Trophy.
The top six skaters in the four disciplines – men’s, women’s, pairs and ice dancing — will qualify for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Barcelona from December 10-13.
Skate America schedule (all times GMT)
Friday
Pairs short programme (20:00)
Women’s short programme (22:00)
Ice Dance short programme (01:00)
Men’s short programme (02:25)
Saturday
Pairs free programme (18:20)
Women’s free programme (20:00)
Ice Dance free dance (00:30)
Men’s free programmes (02:05)