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As the 2025–26 figure skating season takes shape, the pairs landscape heading into Milano Cortina is proving unusually fluid. The ISU’s gradual raise of the senior age minimum, fully in effect by the 2024–25 season, has forced several federations to fast-track development pipelines, and the smaller international field has made Olympic qualification slots especially valuable. Quota places will be largely decided at the 2025 ISU World Championships in Boston and the final qualifying event in Oberstdorf, with only the strongest nations earning the right to send two entries. That pressure has pushed established teams to increase technical difficulty—triple twists, throw triple jumps, and more complex lift entries are now baseline requirements for podium contention—while younger partnerships gamble on consistency to secure a single Olympic berth.



Off the ice, the absence of Russian pairs has reshuffled the medal conversation, opening doors for programs from Canada, China, Japan, and the United States that previously fought for bronze. China has leaned on its centralized pairs tradition, Canada has benefited from veteran leadership and renewed depth, and the U.S. has invested in summer pair combines and biomechanics support to close the gap. Host nation Italy also sees an opportunity, with federation officials discussing a targeted pairs pathway that could yield a home-ice storyline at the Milan venue. With the Grand Prix series and national championships still to come, the identities of the medal favorites remain unsettled, giving the 2026 pairs competition an unusually wide-open feel.

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