Skaters to watch at Figure Skating Qualifier Beijing 2025
In men’s singles, Donovan Carrillo of Mexico will be one of the most experienced skaters. The 25-year-old is already an Olympian, having competed at Beijing 2022, and has a career-best ISU Championships finish of 11th at last season’s 2025 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships.
Another 2025 World Championships participant will be Republic of Korea’s Kim Hyun-gyeom, the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games gold medallist. He competed in Boston in March alongside Cha Junhwan, and together they achieved enough points for the Republic of Korea to obtain one guaranteed quota spot for Milano Cortina and an additional entry in this qualifier.
And individual neutral athlete Petr Gummenik has a World Junior Championships bronze medal to his name from 2020 and has competed at two ISU Grand Prix events in his career.
Another individual neutral athlete, two-time national champion Adeliia Petrosian is one of the front-runners in the women’s singles category. Trained by Eteri Tutberidze’s group, the 18-year-old will be competing in senior ISU competition for the first time.
But she will have to contend with the very experienced Belgian Loena Hendrickx and Georgia’s Anastasiia Gubanova, each of them European champions (Hendrickx in 2024 and Gubanova in 2023) and Beijing 2022 Olympians.
Hendrickx, who’s also a two-time World medallist, missed all of last season through injury, and in her absence Nina Pinzarrone obtained a good enough finish at the World Championships for Belgium to earn an extra spot at the qualifier. Gubanova, meanwhile, is looking to bounce back from extreme disappointment in Boston, where a 28th-best short program saw her miss the cut for the free skate.
In pairs, hosts China have sprung a surprise of sorts. National champions Zhang Jiaxuan / Huang Yihang have been selected over reigning Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, who are returning to competition after three years. Zhang and Huang will attempt to qualify a spot for the country, which will otherwise have no pairs team at Milano Cortina 2026.
Asian Winter Games silver medallists Ryom Tae Ok and Han Kum Chol, representing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, are also present. With her former partner Kim Ju Sik, Ryom finished 11th at the World Championships in 2018 and also competed at the Olympic Winter Games 2018.
Lithuanian veterans Allison Reed and Saulius Ambrulevičius are among the names involved in the ice dance competition. Despite competing together since 2017, they have never competed at an Olympics. They have three World Championships and four European Championships top-10 finishes to their name.
China will be able to call on 2022 Olympians Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu, who are back after sitting out the 2024/25 season. And Ireland’s Carolanne Soucisse / Shane Firus, the 2018 Four Continents silver medallists for Canada, are also looking to make their first Olympic Games.