Riku Miura, Ryuichi Kihara win couples world title; The United States gets chance at 3 Olympic bodies

Boston – Japans Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara have hardly reclaimed the title of the couples at the World Figure Skating Championships, while the United States has the chance to have three teams at the Olympic Games for the first time in 32 years.

Miura and Kihara prevailed through 71 hundredths of a point over the German Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin, combining the results from the short program on Wednesday and the free skate on Thursday in the TD Garden. The Italians Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii earned bronze.

“When we got our first title (in 2023), it was simply uncomplicated happiness; we were only happy to get the title,” said Miura by a translator. “But since then these two years have been very difficult for us. We had some injuries. We had some periods in which things didn’t go as we wanted. So many feelings came to the fore for the second time.”

Miura and Kihara, the silver medalists of the past year, led the Germans with 2.98 points on Wednesday after the short program on Wednesday. Despite the negative execution classes, they recorded in a jump combination on the side and two throws.

Figure Skating worlds: Results | Shipment plan

Hase and Volodin, who went out in front of the Japanese, had positive grades in their first 10 out of 11 elements. They lost points on their last, an elevator. They won bronze in their first joint competition season of the past year and took these championships with the world’s best total number of points this season.

“We hoped for a second that it would be enough (to win), but we did everything in this free skate, and we cannot be ashamed or regret that we held back,” said Hase. “We made our maximum in the program. It was a bit sad (not to win the gold), but we are so satisfied with the skate. And we will make it next season.”

It is the second-clammy couple pair margin of the victory in Worlds under a scoring system that debuted in 2005. The German Aljona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy won in 2012 by 11 hundredths Tatiana Volosozhar and Maksim Trankov.

Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps from Canada, last year, were fifth, a place behind Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava from Georgia. Last year Stellato-Dudek won the oldest woman who won a world skating title at the age of 40. This season she dealt with diseases with injuries and deschamps.

The Americans Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov and Ellie came and Danny O’Shea took the sixth and seventh Thursday. Their results had to be more than 13 to give the US chance to earn a third place for 2026 Olympic couples, and they met 13.

The United States has recently qualified the maximum three Olympic couple teams for the 1994 Lillehammer. In order to get a third place for Milan Cortina, a different US couple than Efimova and Mitrofanov and Kam and O’Shea have to play in a qualification game in Beijing in September.

The last three Olympic couples are at stake there. In view of the likely presence of teams from Russia and China traditional couples, the competition will be difficult, which could take two of the three available places.

Efimova and Mitrofanov, the US Champions, were Clutch on Thursday. After setting up ninth place in the short program, they urged the fourth best free skate to improve three important places.

“That would mean a lot” to get the third Olympic place, said Mitrofanov. “It’s bigger than we do. This is something, actually we set a small goal in our heads (in front of worlds).

“Whether we make it up to the Olympics or not, at least we know that we did everything for the team.”

Efimova and Mitrofanov in the Skating Club of Boston. In the last two days she kissed and cried pictures of club members who died on January 29 with the mid-air collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a helicopter from the army.

“We wanted to devote our performance to everyone and not just,” said Mitrofanov.

The 23 -year -old Miura and the 32 -year -old Kihara have trained in Ontario since his collaboration in 2019, about at the time when Kihara was retired after two Olympic games with other partners and recent concussion. In this first season they ranked outside the 20 top -20 couples in the world, but since then they have set milestones for couples in Japan who have a rich figure in singles events.

Miura and Kihara took seventh place at their first Olympic games in 2022. Japan’s best Olympic couples was the 14th place.

Since then they have taken second, second, second and first place at the World Championships. None of the other top -13 teams of the 2022 Olympic Games still meet internationally.

After Miura and Kihara won their first world championship title in March 2023, they were trapped by Kihara’s lumbar spondylosis. They returned in February 2024 and then took silver last March and won the free skate.

This season they regularly had mistakes outdoors. At the Grand Prix final in December, they ended a distant 11.39 points behind the rabbit and volodine.

Miura and Kihara can again become the third and fourth Japanese skaters, who wins the third and fourth Japanese skaters after Shizuka Arakawa (2006) and Yuzuru Hanyu (2014 and 2018).

From Japan’s 18 world titles in the figure Skating, 16 came in singles and the two from Miura and Kihara.

The worlds continue on Friday with the rhythm dance (11.15 a.m. peacockand 3 p.m., USA Network) and the free skate of women (6 p.m., Pfau and 8pm, NBC and peacock).

Madison Chock and Evan Bates have a third world championship title in a row, but the Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier have momentum.

2025 World Figure Skating Championships Results

Couples
Gold: Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara (JPN) – 219.79
Silver: Minerva Hase/Nikita Volodin (GER) – 219.08
Bronze: Sara Conti/Niccolo Macii (ITA) – 210.47
4. Anastasiia Metelkina/Luka Berulava (Geo) – 202.21
5. Deanna Stellato-Dudek/Maxime Deschamps (CAN) -199.76
6. Alisa Efimova/Misha Mitrofanov (USA) – 199.29
7. Ellie Kam/Danny O’Shea (USA) – 195.38
8. Maria Pavlova/Alexei Sviatchenko (Hun) – 193.29
9. Anastasia Golubeva/Hector Giotopoulos Moore (from) – 188.24
10. Ekaterina Geynish/Dmitrii Chigirev (UZB) – 183.01