As each year, some skaters will see their age-eligibility changing next season. Skaters born between 01.07.2003 and 30.06.2004 will have the possibility to enter the senior circuit, while skaters born between 01.07.2005 and 30.06.2006 will be able to skate at junior level. Skaters born before 30.06.2000 will be out of junior category (born before 30.06.1998 for male skaters in pairs and ice dance).
Who’s affected by these changes? Let’s do a state of play!
(And sorry for the mistakes as English isn’t my mother tongue )
The following skaters will have the possibility to enter the senior circuit:
Ladies
Each year we are waiting for the senior beginning of some Russian ladies, but next season the suspense will be at its maximum. The whole podium of the last Russian senior Nationals will reach the senior circuit, with probably two Grand Prix for each one. Who will be the first of these girls to achieve a quad Lutz in a senior competition? A quad Toeloop? Alena Kostornaia will turn 16 in august, Anna Shcherbakova is now 15 and Aleksandra Trusova will turn 15 in June. Scoring widely over 200 points, they will all compete for the gold medals. They even make forget that other talented girls, like Anastasia Tarakanova or Viktoria Vasilieva, have the same age. For them, it would probably be a good idea to stay junior one more season.
Young You from Korea will quite turn 15 and will obviously begin at the senior-level. She’s got the best international Korean score this season (205.82 points) and is already the 2-time national senior champion. Korea has already a strong female team, but can send three of them to 4 Continents and two to Worlds. Jihun To will turn 16 this summer, and had good results on the junior circuit.
Finishing 7th at Junior Worlds, Hanna Harrell will turn 16 in September, but will need to improve in order to find her place in the US ladies category. Rion Sumiyoshi and Wakana Naganawa from Japan will have to face the same problem when turning 16 this year.
The European Championships will maybe see a lot of new faces. Italy faced in December a “Russian-situation” during Nationals, when the champion and the vice-champion weren’t age-eligible to be sent to Euros. Alessia Tornaghi was born 3 days too late to do so! Next season, she won’t have this problem again. Lucrezia Beccari will turn 16 in December, but Italy will only be able to send one lady at next Euros.
Georgia will maybe come back with Alina Urushadze, some years after Gedevanishvili’s retirement. She finished #11 at Junior Worlds. Anastasia Arkhipova from Ukraine is awaited too, after her good performances on the JGP circuit. Alina Soupian from Israel had some good results too and will turn 15 in May. In Austria, two girls will turn 16 this fall. Olga Mikutina had strong results this year, while Stefanie Pesendorfer did a good season last year. Anna Kuzmenko, who turned 15 recently, will be a contender for the third European French spot. Cheuk Ka Cheung (Hongkong) got the TES to JW so can hope to reach the ones for 4 Continents.
Some other girls will turn 15 or 16 soon, but will have to fight against higher-level established ladies in their own countries: Julia Lang (Hungary), Selma Ihr and Emelie Nordqvist (Sweden), Maia Mazzara (Switzerland – switching to France?), Milania Väänänen (Finland)…
Pairs
Not many junior pairs will have the possibility to reach the senior circuit. Feiyao Tang & Yongchao Yang, who finished #4 at JW, will be in competition with the top Chinese pairs, but are to follow for the next Olympics in Beijing.
Ukraine will maybe be back at Euros with Sofia Nesterova & Artiom Darenskyi. They finished #8 at JW and their country’s last pairs-participation at Euros was in 2014.
For the rare Russian, US and Canadian pairs whose lady will turn 16 in the next months, the national concurrence will be tough.
Men
2018 JW silver medalist Artur Danielian will be able to begin to skate at the senior level, as well as his fellows Egor Rukhin and Ilia Yablokov. We never know what can happen in Russian Men’s category!
Shun Sato from Japan scored over 200 points at Nationals and turned 15 recently. Younghyun Cha from Korea (#20 at JW) will have more chances to represent his country at ISU competitions, with decent chances to qualify to 4 Continents. Same situation for the Kazakhs Rakhat Bralin and Mikhail Shaidorov. Andreas Nordebäck (Sweden) turned 15 recently and is already a contender for the two Swedish European’s spots, after Majorov’s retirement.
Still trying to be the first Moldavian skater at JW, Lilian Binzari will have the possibility to try to be the first skater from his country to compete at Euros.
Ice dance
It’s really rare that dancers enter the senior circuit at 15 or 16. If they do so, Viktoria Azroyan & Aleksandr Siroshtan (#20 at JW) can try to qualify to Euros, as there’s currently no other Armenian dancers.
The following skaters won’t be junior age-eligible anymore:
Men
The whole US team from 2019 Junior Worlds will be over 19 on July 1st. Tomoki Hiwatashi already challenges the top US skaters with his 4th place at US senior nationals. Aleksei Krasnozhon finished 5th and Camden Pulkinen 12th.
Reigning JW silver medalist Roman Savosin will be a full-time senior skater next season, as the 2018 JW champion Aleksei Erokhov, whose senior beginnings were complicated. Egor Murashov and Makar Ignatov from Russia will be in the same situation.
It was the last junior season for Irakli Maysuradze (Georgia) too, with a 7th place at JW, as well as for Nurullah Sahaka and Tomas Guarino (Switzerland), Jonathan Hess (Germany), Donovan Carrillo (Mexico), Landry Le May (France), Aleix Gabara (Spain), Kai Xiang Chew (Malaisia). Finally, some skaters in the same ages left the junior circuit earlier, as did Sota Yamamoto (Japan) and Deniss Vasiljevs (Latvia)
Ice dance
Quite newcomers this season, JW silver medalists Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva & Nikita Nazarov (Russia) will already leave the junior level, as Nikita’s quite 21. They will have to continue to fight against Sofia Shevchenko & Igor Eremenko, which were seen longer on the junior circuit. Igor is already 21.
Some changes in Canada, where it was the last junior season for Ellie Fisher & Simon-Pierre Malette-Paquette, as well as for Alicia Fabbri & Paul Ayer (JW #9) and Ashlynne Stairs & Elliott Graham. The three men will be too old for the junior circuit.
French new team Evgenia Lopareva & Geoffrey Brissaud will already turn senior after their 10th place at JW. She’s quite 19 and he’s 21.
Dancing at both levels this season, Belarussian Evgenia Kalehanova & Uladzislau Palkhouski (JW #15) will be full-time senior dancers after July. Same situation for Chinese Yuzhu Guo & Pengkun Zhao and Australian Matilda Friend & William Badaoui.
Many replacements are scheduled in Germany, where Charise Matthaei & Maximilian Pfisterer (JW #17) won’t be age-eligible anymore, he’s quite 22. The two other top junior teams already split.
The following teams will have to skate at the senior-level too, mostly because of the man: Mira Polishook & Deividas Kizala (Lithuania), Lila-Maya Seclet-Monchot & Renan Manceaux (France), Jocelyn Haynes & James Koszuta (USA), Olivia Oliver & Petr Paleev (Poland), Sophia Simitsakos & Jeffrey Wong (Greece). In the case of Jessica Palfreyman & Nicholas McCreary (Australia), it’s “because” of the lady.
After their silver medal at 2018 JW, Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko decided to turn senior one year earlier. Next season they’ll be officially out of junior eligibility.
Reigning JW champions Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha can continue one more year at the junior level… but are likely to move to senior-level.
Pairs
The top Russian teams can stay junior next season, but some of them already begun to skate on the senior circuit, as did Anastasia Poluianova & Dmitri Sopot, who’ll turn full-time senior.
The US junior circuit will see radical changes with the senior moving of Sarah Feng & Tommy-Jo Nyman, Chelsea Liu & Ian Meyh (both girls will turn 20 in the next months) and Laiken Lockley & Keenan Prochnow (he’ll turn 22). There are already many strong senior-level pairs in USA.
Japanese Rika Miura & Shoya Ichihashi already skate at the senior-level and are currently the only senior pair in their country. He’ll turn 22. We’ll see one more Italian senior pair with Vivienne Contarino & Marco Pauletti, 19 and 21.
After failing to qualify to JW, Daria Danilova & Michal Tsiba (Netherlands) will have to skate senior next season, as he’s already 21.
Ladies
Usually girls already turn senior at 15 or 16 and only the lower national-ranked continue on the junior circuit until 19 or 20. Yuhana Yokoi (Japan), who finished 9th at JW, is in this situation, she’ll turn 19 in May. Léa Serna (France) did a long junior career too, but now will turn 20. Kristen Spours (United Kingdom) will be a full-time senior skater too, as well as Lara Roth (Austria) and Kyarha van Tiel (Netherlands).
So it sounds a bit funny to mention it, but after July 1st, Evgenia Medvedeva will lose the possibility to return on the junior circuit. As well as Elizabet Tursynbaeva, Kaori Sakamoto, Mai Mihara, Loena Hendrickx, Serafima Sakhanovich, Amber Glenn, Maria Sotskova, Emmi Peltonen, Alicia Pineault…
The following skaters will have the possibility to enter the junior circuit:
Ladies
This year, the most famous girl to debut on the junior circuit won’t be Russian, but comes from the USA! Alysa Liu already won the US senior championships at 13 with her famous triple axel. But she’ll have to face a new generation of strong Russian girls, lead by Kamila Valieva, who scored nationally 212.97 points. She withdrew from Russian junior nationals, where Daria Usacheva finished 10th. Both will turn 13 in the next weeks, as well as Maya Khromykh, another girl who scored over 200 points nationally. Anna Frolova will turn 14 in August and will be another one Russian girl to follow. Let’s mention the girls ranked 14th to 16th at Russian junior nats’, Anastasia Shabotova, Eva Kobzar and Nikol Vaitkus, but not all of these girls will have the occasion to skate on the JGP circuit!
We’ll probably see new girls from Japan and Korea, but I couldn’t find any information. Sara Honda, born in 2007, will have to wait one more year to skate junior. In North America, age categories are usually different than internationally, most of the US novice skaters are already junior-eligible, or sometimes senior-eligible too! From the novice championship, only Alena Budko (ranked 7th) wasn’t junior-eligible and is now 13.
Let’s end this list with Milana Romashova, 13, who won the belarussian junior championship with 133 points.
Men
The most awaited junior beginning will probably be the one from Daniil Samsonov. Born two weeks too late to skate at the junior-level in 2018-19, his national PB is impressive: 264.01 points. Some other Russian skaters born between July 2005 and June 2006 scored over 200 points this season: Andrei Kutovoi, Nikolai Ugozhaev and Aleksandr Golubev.
Same remark as for the ladies: I couldn’t find the birthdate of Sora Tarumi and Shunsuke Nakamura (Japan) and all the US novice championships skaters are already junior-eligible, as well as Wesley Chiu, the Canadian novice champion.
Two other European 13-years old skaters will probably begin at the junior level: Casper Johansson (Sweden) and Davide Calderari (Germany). Both scored over 100 points at novice level.
Pairs
Two US pairs with a 13-years old girl scored over 130 points at Nationals: Isabelle Martins & Ryan Bedard (Junior #3) and Cate Fleming & Jedidiah Isbell (Novice #2). Both have good chances to debut on the JGP circuit. Same situation for the Canadian novice champions, Kelly Ann Laurin & Loucas Ethier. In Russia, quite all the competing pairs at Junior championships were internationally age-eligible, which doesn’t let many places for newcomers next season.
Ice dance
Usually dancers do their junior beginnings a bit later and only a few teams are competing junior at the age of 14. US novice champions Elizabeth Tkachenko & Alexei Kiliakov will be interesting to follow, but I’m not sure whether she’ll be age-eligible (born in 2006). On the international novice circuit this year, one pair from an unusual country was dominating; Angelina Kudryavtseva & Ilia Karankevich, representing Cyprus, but I can’t find her birthdate. They could be the first skaters from Cyprus to skate at major ISU events if they qualify to JW.
Don’t hesitate to complete this list with skaters I could have forgotten!
And let’s talk about which senior or junior beginnings you are the most waiting for.
Personally, I’m shared between the senior beginnings of Alena Kostornaia and Young You!
Who’s affected by these changes? Let’s do a state of play!
(And sorry for the mistakes as English isn’t my mother tongue )
The following skaters will have the possibility to enter the senior circuit:
Ladies
Each year we are waiting for the senior beginning of some Russian ladies, but next season the suspense will be at its maximum. The whole podium of the last Russian senior Nationals will reach the senior circuit, with probably two Grand Prix for each one. Who will be the first of these girls to achieve a quad Lutz in a senior competition? A quad Toeloop? Alena Kostornaia will turn 16 in august, Anna Shcherbakova is now 15 and Aleksandra Trusova will turn 15 in June. Scoring widely over 200 points, they will all compete for the gold medals. They even make forget that other talented girls, like Anastasia Tarakanova or Viktoria Vasilieva, have the same age. For them, it would probably be a good idea to stay junior one more season.
Young You from Korea will quite turn 15 and will obviously begin at the senior-level. She’s got the best international Korean score this season (205.82 points) and is already the 2-time national senior champion. Korea has already a strong female team, but can send three of them to 4 Continents and two to Worlds. Jihun To will turn 16 this summer, and had good results on the junior circuit.
Finishing 7th at Junior Worlds, Hanna Harrell will turn 16 in September, but will need to improve in order to find her place in the US ladies category. Rion Sumiyoshi and Wakana Naganawa from Japan will have to face the same problem when turning 16 this year.
The European Championships will maybe see a lot of new faces. Italy faced in December a “Russian-situation” during Nationals, when the champion and the vice-champion weren’t age-eligible to be sent to Euros. Alessia Tornaghi was born 3 days too late to do so! Next season, she won’t have this problem again. Lucrezia Beccari will turn 16 in December, but Italy will only be able to send one lady at next Euros.
Georgia will maybe come back with Alina Urushadze, some years after Gedevanishvili’s retirement. She finished #11 at Junior Worlds. Anastasia Arkhipova from Ukraine is awaited too, after her good performances on the JGP circuit. Alina Soupian from Israel had some good results too and will turn 15 in May. In Austria, two girls will turn 16 this fall. Olga Mikutina had strong results this year, while Stefanie Pesendorfer did a good season last year. Anna Kuzmenko, who turned 15 recently, will be a contender for the third European French spot. Cheuk Ka Cheung (Hongkong) got the TES to JW so can hope to reach the ones for 4 Continents.
Some other girls will turn 15 or 16 soon, but will have to fight against higher-level established ladies in their own countries: Julia Lang (Hungary), Selma Ihr and Emelie Nordqvist (Sweden), Maia Mazzara (Switzerland – switching to France?), Milania Väänänen (Finland)…
Pairs
Not many junior pairs will have the possibility to reach the senior circuit. Feiyao Tang & Yongchao Yang, who finished #4 at JW, will be in competition with the top Chinese pairs, but are to follow for the next Olympics in Beijing.
Ukraine will maybe be back at Euros with Sofia Nesterova & Artiom Darenskyi. They finished #8 at JW and their country’s last pairs-participation at Euros was in 2014.
For the rare Russian, US and Canadian pairs whose lady will turn 16 in the next months, the national concurrence will be tough.
Men
2018 JW silver medalist Artur Danielian will be able to begin to skate at the senior level, as well as his fellows Egor Rukhin and Ilia Yablokov. We never know what can happen in Russian Men’s category!
Shun Sato from Japan scored over 200 points at Nationals and turned 15 recently. Younghyun Cha from Korea (#20 at JW) will have more chances to represent his country at ISU competitions, with decent chances to qualify to 4 Continents. Same situation for the Kazakhs Rakhat Bralin and Mikhail Shaidorov. Andreas Nordebäck (Sweden) turned 15 recently and is already a contender for the two Swedish European’s spots, after Majorov’s retirement.
Still trying to be the first Moldavian skater at JW, Lilian Binzari will have the possibility to try to be the first skater from his country to compete at Euros.
Ice dance
It’s really rare that dancers enter the senior circuit at 15 or 16. If they do so, Viktoria Azroyan & Aleksandr Siroshtan (#20 at JW) can try to qualify to Euros, as there’s currently no other Armenian dancers.
The following skaters won’t be junior age-eligible anymore:
Men
The whole US team from 2019 Junior Worlds will be over 19 on July 1st. Tomoki Hiwatashi already challenges the top US skaters with his 4th place at US senior nationals. Aleksei Krasnozhon finished 5th and Camden Pulkinen 12th.
Reigning JW silver medalist Roman Savosin will be a full-time senior skater next season, as the 2018 JW champion Aleksei Erokhov, whose senior beginnings were complicated. Egor Murashov and Makar Ignatov from Russia will be in the same situation.
It was the last junior season for Irakli Maysuradze (Georgia) too, with a 7th place at JW, as well as for Nurullah Sahaka and Tomas Guarino (Switzerland), Jonathan Hess (Germany), Donovan Carrillo (Mexico), Landry Le May (France), Aleix Gabara (Spain), Kai Xiang Chew (Malaisia). Finally, some skaters in the same ages left the junior circuit earlier, as did Sota Yamamoto (Japan) and Deniss Vasiljevs (Latvia)
Ice dance
Quite newcomers this season, JW silver medalists Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva & Nikita Nazarov (Russia) will already leave the junior level, as Nikita’s quite 21. They will have to continue to fight against Sofia Shevchenko & Igor Eremenko, which were seen longer on the junior circuit. Igor is already 21.
Some changes in Canada, where it was the last junior season for Ellie Fisher & Simon-Pierre Malette-Paquette, as well as for Alicia Fabbri & Paul Ayer (JW #9) and Ashlynne Stairs & Elliott Graham. The three men will be too old for the junior circuit.
French new team Evgenia Lopareva & Geoffrey Brissaud will already turn senior after their 10th place at JW. She’s quite 19 and he’s 21.
Dancing at both levels this season, Belarussian Evgenia Kalehanova & Uladzislau Palkhouski (JW #15) will be full-time senior dancers after July. Same situation for Chinese Yuzhu Guo & Pengkun Zhao and Australian Matilda Friend & William Badaoui.
Many replacements are scheduled in Germany, where Charise Matthaei & Maximilian Pfisterer (JW #17) won’t be age-eligible anymore, he’s quite 22. The two other top junior teams already split.
The following teams will have to skate at the senior-level too, mostly because of the man: Mira Polishook & Deividas Kizala (Lithuania), Lila-Maya Seclet-Monchot & Renan Manceaux (France), Jocelyn Haynes & James Koszuta (USA), Olivia Oliver & Petr Paleev (Poland), Sophia Simitsakos & Jeffrey Wong (Greece). In the case of Jessica Palfreyman & Nicholas McCreary (Australia), it’s “because” of the lady.
After their silver medal at 2018 JW, Christina Carreira & Anthony Ponomarenko decided to turn senior one year earlier. Next season they’ll be officially out of junior eligibility.
Reigning JW champions Marjorie Lajoie & Zachary Lagha can continue one more year at the junior level… but are likely to move to senior-level.
Pairs
The top Russian teams can stay junior next season, but some of them already begun to skate on the senior circuit, as did Anastasia Poluianova & Dmitri Sopot, who’ll turn full-time senior.
The US junior circuit will see radical changes with the senior moving of Sarah Feng & Tommy-Jo Nyman, Chelsea Liu & Ian Meyh (both girls will turn 20 in the next months) and Laiken Lockley & Keenan Prochnow (he’ll turn 22). There are already many strong senior-level pairs in USA.
Japanese Rika Miura & Shoya Ichihashi already skate at the senior-level and are currently the only senior pair in their country. He’ll turn 22. We’ll see one more Italian senior pair with Vivienne Contarino & Marco Pauletti, 19 and 21.
After failing to qualify to JW, Daria Danilova & Michal Tsiba (Netherlands) will have to skate senior next season, as he’s already 21.
Ladies
Usually girls already turn senior at 15 or 16 and only the lower national-ranked continue on the junior circuit until 19 or 20. Yuhana Yokoi (Japan), who finished 9th at JW, is in this situation, she’ll turn 19 in May. Léa Serna (France) did a long junior career too, but now will turn 20. Kristen Spours (United Kingdom) will be a full-time senior skater too, as well as Lara Roth (Austria) and Kyarha van Tiel (Netherlands).
So it sounds a bit funny to mention it, but after July 1st, Evgenia Medvedeva will lose the possibility to return on the junior circuit. As well as Elizabet Tursynbaeva, Kaori Sakamoto, Mai Mihara, Loena Hendrickx, Serafima Sakhanovich, Amber Glenn, Maria Sotskova, Emmi Peltonen, Alicia Pineault…
The following skaters will have the possibility to enter the junior circuit:
Ladies
This year, the most famous girl to debut on the junior circuit won’t be Russian, but comes from the USA! Alysa Liu already won the US senior championships at 13 with her famous triple axel. But she’ll have to face a new generation of strong Russian girls, lead by Kamila Valieva, who scored nationally 212.97 points. She withdrew from Russian junior nationals, where Daria Usacheva finished 10th. Both will turn 13 in the next weeks, as well as Maya Khromykh, another girl who scored over 200 points nationally. Anna Frolova will turn 14 in August and will be another one Russian girl to follow. Let’s mention the girls ranked 14th to 16th at Russian junior nats’, Anastasia Shabotova, Eva Kobzar and Nikol Vaitkus, but not all of these girls will have the occasion to skate on the JGP circuit!
We’ll probably see new girls from Japan and Korea, but I couldn’t find any information. Sara Honda, born in 2007, will have to wait one more year to skate junior. In North America, age categories are usually different than internationally, most of the US novice skaters are already junior-eligible, or sometimes senior-eligible too! From the novice championship, only Alena Budko (ranked 7th) wasn’t junior-eligible and is now 13.
Let’s end this list with Milana Romashova, 13, who won the belarussian junior championship with 133 points.
Men
The most awaited junior beginning will probably be the one from Daniil Samsonov. Born two weeks too late to skate at the junior-level in 2018-19, his national PB is impressive: 264.01 points. Some other Russian skaters born between July 2005 and June 2006 scored over 200 points this season: Andrei Kutovoi, Nikolai Ugozhaev and Aleksandr Golubev.
Same remark as for the ladies: I couldn’t find the birthdate of Sora Tarumi and Shunsuke Nakamura (Japan) and all the US novice championships skaters are already junior-eligible, as well as Wesley Chiu, the Canadian novice champion.
Two other European 13-years old skaters will probably begin at the junior level: Casper Johansson (Sweden) and Davide Calderari (Germany). Both scored over 100 points at novice level.
Pairs
Two US pairs with a 13-years old girl scored over 130 points at Nationals: Isabelle Martins & Ryan Bedard (Junior #3) and Cate Fleming & Jedidiah Isbell (Novice #2). Both have good chances to debut on the JGP circuit. Same situation for the Canadian novice champions, Kelly Ann Laurin & Loucas Ethier. In Russia, quite all the competing pairs at Junior championships were internationally age-eligible, which doesn’t let many places for newcomers next season.
Ice dance
Usually dancers do their junior beginnings a bit later and only a few teams are competing junior at the age of 14. US novice champions Elizabeth Tkachenko & Alexei Kiliakov will be interesting to follow, but I’m not sure whether she’ll be age-eligible (born in 2006). On the international novice circuit this year, one pair from an unusual country was dominating; Angelina Kudryavtseva & Ilia Karankevich, representing Cyprus, but I can’t find her birthdate. They could be the first skaters from Cyprus to skate at major ISU events if they qualify to JW.
Don’t hesitate to complete this list with skaters I could have forgotten!
And let’s talk about which senior or junior beginnings you are the most waiting for.
Personally, I’m shared between the senior beginnings of Alena Kostornaia and Young You!