This week’s Olympic and Paralympic sporting events include the Grand Prix Final – the top figure skating competition ahead of the Cortina Games in Milan – and the return of the Ice and Snow League.
The Grand Prix Final will take place in Nagoya, Japan, from Thursday to Saturday and will feature the top six finishers in each event from the six-event Grand Prix series in October and November, making it a mini preview of the Olympic competition. For the first time, the Grand Prix Final will feature every defending World Championship medalist.
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Ilya Marinin is the favorite in the final. He faces a two-year, 12-fight win streak against Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, the 2022 Olympic silver medalist. In three starts this season, the “Four Gods” have achieved the top three results in the world by a large margin.
2025 World Champion Alysa Liu and 2024 Grand Prix Final Champion Amber Glenn will compete against this season’s highest-scoring skaters in the world (all from Japan): three-time World Champion Kaori Sakamoto, Ami Nakai and Mone Chiba.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates can add to their three consecutive world titles with their third consecutive ice dance final title. The married couple faced a new challenge from France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, who were in their first season together. Like Jock and Bates, the Frenchman won two Grand Prix regular-season starts. Two couples who train under the same coach in Montreal go head-to-head for the first time.
Reigning world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan are the only team to win both of their regular-season starts, but Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava have the best results in the world this season.
Figure Skating: Skate Canada
How to watch the 2025 Figure Skating Grand Prix Final
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The Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan, is the top fall figure skating event.
In alpine skiing, Mikaela Shiffrin, who won the last four World Cup slalom titles last season and has qualified for her fourth Olympics, will compete in the giant slalom in Tremblant, Canada, on Saturday and Sunday.
Shiffrin calls her GS a “work in progress.” She punctured her oblique muscle in a GS accident in November 2024, missed two months of competition, and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder while training to return to competition last winter. In five GS races since her return, her best finish was fourth.
Not only is Shiffrin the best slalom skier in history, she is an Olympic gold medalist in the giant slalom and holds a women’s record of 22 World Cup victories in the event. She will need to achieve a strong GS result over the next two months to earn a high start for the Olympics and thus improve her chances of medaling in the event. Currently, the top GS skiers are New Zealand’s Alice Robinson and Austria’s Julia Scheib.
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Swiss Marco Odermatt headlines the Stifel Birds of Prey Men’s Alpine Ski World Cup in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
odermatt, a lion lovers WHO Share ad with Roger FedererHe was the leader in the downhill, super-G and giant slalom events of the World Cup last season, and won his first super-G and giant slalom championships this season. He is also an Olympic medal contender on the team, putting him on track to become the first man to win four alpine medals at a single Olympics.
Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, a two-time World Cup downhill season champion, will compete in his first downhill race since a crash in January 2024 that left him with a severe tear in his right leg and torn ligaments in his left shoulder. Kilde, who is engaged to Shiffrin, competed in his first super-G last Thursday at Copper Mountain in Colorado and finished 24th.
Alpine Skiing: 2024 Stifel Birds of Prey Audi FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup
How to watch Stifel Birds of Prey Beaver Creek Alpine Skiing World Cup
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Birds of Prey Alpine Ski World Cup airs on NBC Sports and Peacock.
The Snow League, a halfpipe tour for snowboarding and freeskiing athletes founded by three-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, debuted last March in Aspen, Colorado, and hosts its first international event in China this weekend.
The ski halfpipe event includes three-time Olympic slopestyle medalist Nick Goepper, who established himself as a medal contender in the new event with a victory at last January’s X Games.
Eileen Gu, who won two gold medals and a silver medal at the 2022 Olympics on home soil, competed in the halfpipe for the first time in 11 months, having won 14 of her last 15 halfpipe races at FIS level since 2021.
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In the snowboard halfpipe, 2022 gold medalist Ayumu Hirano of Japan is preparing for a possible Olympic showdown with Australia’s Scotty James. In the women’s field, American Maddie Mastro spent the summer recovering from a dislocated elbow in June.
Shaun White
Shaun White’s new snowboard league will head to Aspen and the mountains of China where he finished his career
The Ice League has announced the remainder of its four-stop opening season schedule.
The Speed ​​Skating World Cup continues in Heerenveen, the Netherlands.
Jordan Stolz, the 2023 and 2024 world champion in the 500m, 1000m and 1500m, is off to a strong start to the season with six wins from eight races at these distances in the previous two World Cups. Stoltz, seeking to become just the second American to win three gold medals in a single Winter Olympics, reached his first World Cup podium in the mass start (he most recently finished third in Calgary) in what could be his fourth race in Milan.
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Like Stoltz, Erin Jackson meets Olympic qualifying standards, having finished on the podium at the previous two World Cups. Jackson, who became the first black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 2022, is ranked second in the world in the 500 meters this season behind Dutchwoman Femke Kok, who is undefeated in the event since February 2024.
The U.S. has more Olympic medal contenders: Casey Dawson in the men’s 5,000 meters, Mia Manganello in the women’s mass start and the men’s team pursuit (including Dawson), all World Cup champions so far this season.
Jordan Stoltz
Jordan Stoltz’s speed skating legend continues to grow with more records, awards presented by Eric Hayden
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Jordan Stoltz is on track to win three gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Eric Hayden is the only American to win so many titles in a single Winter Olympics.
The Cross-Country Skiing World Cup moves to Trondheim, Norway.
Jessie Diggins, America’s most decorated cross-country skier with Olympic medals in every color, got off to a strong start in her final season before retiring last weekend, including a runner-up finish.
This weekend’s competition includes the first 10-kilometer freestyle race of the season. At the Olympics, this event may be Diggins’ best chance at winning the first individual Olympic gold medal in U.S. cross-country skiing history. She won the event’s last world title in 2023.
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Norwegian Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, competing in his homeland, won six gold medals in six events at last season’s world championships. No athlete has won six medals of any color at a single Winter Olympics. Klebo won his 99th career World Cup match last weekend. He and Canadian ski mogul Mikaël Kingsbury, both now 99, are hoping to become the first people to win 100 individual World Cups in any winter sport this weekend.
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Jesse Deakins conquers “The Big Dumber”. Next up: the toughest race in skiing.
Jessie Diggins shares the story behind her epic Olympic cross-country ski race, her annual Big Dumbo, and looks ahead to a crown jewel event.
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The first Aerials and Masters World Cup of the season will be held in Ruka, Finland, where Team USA has several Olympic medal contenders. The headliner is Jaelin Kauf, who has already qualified for the Olympics. Kauf, the 2022 Olympic Ski Mogul silver medalist who won the overall World Cup title last season and is a dual Ski Mogul World Champion, will make her Olympic debut in 2026, giving Ski Mogul two Olympic events.
2022 Olympic Mogul gold medalist Australian Jakara Anthony missed most of last season due to injury. She is expected to return to Ruka and could become Kauf’s biggest rival after the Olympics.
In the aerials, the United States has defending world champion Kayla Kuhn and two-time individual world silver medalist Quinn Dellinger. Both were members of the mixed aerials team that won the world title last season.
In sled hockey, Team USA will win its 10th consecutive Para Hockey Cup title in preparation for the Paralympic Games in March. Declan Farmer, the national team’s all-time scoring leader, has already led the U.S. to wins over the Czechs on Sunday and China on Tuesday.
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Next up is Wednesday night’s final qualifying round opponent, Canada, with a possible rematch in Saturday’s final. The United States has won the past four Paralympic Games, including beating Canada for gold at the last two Paralympic Games.
Declan Farmer
Declan Farmer, Paralympic star partners with DAWG National Hockey Foundation
Declan Farmer and Colorado’s U.S. national team players help a hockey-focused nonprofit raise funds for those in need.