The World Figure Skating Championships air live next week on NBC Sports and Peacock from Boston's TD Garden.

Defending champions Ilia Malinin and ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates lead the U.S. team for the biggest international competition between now and the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.

Malinin bids to become the second American men's singles skater to repeat as world champion in the last 40 years after Nathan Chen.

He won last year's title by 24.11 points over Japan's Yuma Kagiyama, who is again expected to be the top challenger.

World Figure Skating Championships in Boston to set the stage for 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics

Americans Ilia Malinin and Madison Chock and Evan Bates are among the defending champions.

Malinin has won his last eight competitions dating to December 2023. This season, he became the first skater to attempt seven quadruple jumps in one program, doing so at his last two competitions (December's Grand Prix Final and January's U.S. Championships, falling on one quad each time).

Chock and Bates can become the first ice dancers to win a third consecutive world title in 28 years.

The married couple won their two biggest events so far this season — a repeat title at December's Grand Prix Final and a record-tying sixth U.S. ice dance title in January.

They also saw their overall eight-competition win streak end at October's Skate America (won by Brits Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson) and also took runner-up at their most recent event, February's Four Continents Championships, to Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.

In the women's event, the U.S. boasts the world's top skater this season. Amber Glenn has won all five of her events in 2024-25, including December's Grand Prix Final, the biggest title for a U.S. women's singles skater in 14 years.

Isabeau Levito and Alysa Liu are also medal contenders. Levito took silver at the 2024 Worlds, then missed most of this season due a stress reaction in her right foot.

Liu, the 2022 World bronze medalist, ended a two-year retirement to compete this season. She finished a mere 1.46 points behind Glenn at nationals.

The U.S. trio will look to dethrone Japan's Kaori Sakamoto, who bids to become the first women's singles skater to win four world titles in a row since American Carol Heiss took five from 1956-60.

The pairs' event could be a showdown among 2024 World champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Canada, 2023 World champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan and Germany's Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin, who won the last two Grand Prix Finals.

Stellato-Dudek, a 2000 World Junior Championships silver medalist in singles for the U.S., spent 15 years in retirement before returning in pairs and then switching to Canada. Last year, she became at age 40 the oldest female figure skater to win a world title in any of the four disciplines.

*From March 2

Amber Glenn’s figure skating story ties to Jason Brown, Ashley Wagner, 7th grade math class

Amber Glenn reflected on long-ago memories of Jason Brown and Ashley Wagner, plus recent ones with a local school class.