World figure skating championships to return to Boston

Boston will host the March 2025 World Figure Skating Championships, the biggest international competition for the year preceding the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

The International Skating Union (ISU) announced, provisionally, that Boston will host worlds for the second time, after doing so at TD Garden in 2016, the last time any U.S. venue held the annual event. U.S. Figure Skating said TD Garden will again be the venue in 2025.

The ISU also announced that Prague will provisionally host the 2026 World Championships, held the month after the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

The ISU previously announced that the 2023 Worlds will be in Saitama, Japan. The 2024 Worlds will be in Montreal.

The 2025 Worlds are expected to largely determine the number of entries each nation receives at the 2026 Olympics.

In 2016, the U.S. earned three medals at worlds in Boston — Ashley Wagner‘s silver and ice dance silver (Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani) and bronze (Madison Chock and Evan Bates). Chock and Bates are still competing, entering this season as the world’s top returning dance couple.

The last American figure skater to win a world title on American ice was Evan Lysacek in Los Angeles in 2009.

The 2022-23 figure skating season starts in earnest with Skate America next week.

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Americans Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Chase Ealey, Noah Lyles and Grant Holloway are among the 10 women’s and 10 men’s nominees for World Athletics Athlete of the Year awards.

A three-way voting process will determine the five women’s and five men’s finalists: World Athletics Council (50%), World Athletics family (25%) and a fan vote (25%) via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube likes and Twitter