USFS' Athlete Selection Procedures for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games

[Sylvia]

I thought it might be useful to create a separate thread early - thanks for the heads up @ice coverage:

U.S. Figure Skating Athlete Selection Procedures 2026 Olympic Winter Games
Publication Date: January 21, 2025 22 pages

https://www.usfigureskating.org/sites/default/files/media-files/2026%20FSK%20Athlete%20Selection%20Procedures%20FINAL%20OLY.pdf

"Athletes being considered for nomination to the Games will be evaluated on their performance at any of the
events on the calendar listed below starting with the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships."

 

[Kiki5375]

So did anyone start calculating?

I did, but I am not sure if I got everything right. My ranking so far after 2 Challengers and 1 NQS and last years points

Jimmy Ma 468,29
Tomoki Hiwatashi 401,10
Ilia Malinin 240
Jacob Sanchez 211,31
Andrew Torgashew 88,59
Jason Brown 75
Camden Pulkinen 30
Maxim Naumov 0
Lucas Broussard 0

I didn't add a 2nd challenger score for Jacob Sanchez yet ((CS1 + 80% of CS 1) / 2 *0,75) because I already saw that he will take part in Nepela Memorial next week. So I will wait for the real CS2 score instead of the 80% replacement score.

Feel free to correct me if you got different numbers

 

[Karen-W]

So did anyone start calculating?

I did, but I am not sure if I got everything right. My ranking so far after 2 Challengers and 1 NQS and last years points

Jimmy Ma 468,29
Tomoki Hiwatashi 401,10
Ilia Malinin 240
Jacob Sanchez 211,31
Andrew Torgashew 88,59
Jason Brown 75
Camden Pulkinen 30
Maxim Naumov 0
Lucas Broussard 0

I didn't add a 2nd challenger score for Jacob Sanchez yet ((CS1 + 80% of CS 1) / 2 *0,75) because I already saw that he will take part in Nepela Memorial next week. So I will wait for the real CS2 score instead of the 80% replacement score.

Feel free to correct me if you got different numbers

Jacob Sanchez is 290.55 per the formulas on the USFS' spreadsheet. You neglected to include the CS/Sr B Avg of 105.66 for his points. Also, Nepela Memorial is 3 weekends from now (this week is Lombardia, the following week the only FS competition internationally is the Olympic Qualifying Event in Beijing, the week after that are both Nebelhorn & Nepela).

I have 30.00 for Torgashev because I haven't included any of the NQS scores in my table yet as it is ongoing (I also don't think I was expecting any of the main contenders to compete in any NQS events since most of them have byes to Nats).

 

[Kiki5375]

Yes I must admit I was too lazy to figure out how much Jacob get's for 2nd CS if he has only one score yet.
Torgy got 234,35 at Golden Midwest NQS which goes into calculation as 58,59. Compared to the 30 he gets for Nationals it's not too bad and the competition was on his practice rink so he didn't have to travel for it at all.
Max might do the same since there is one NQS in Norwood in October but it's also very close to the French GP. I don't know how far ahead he will fly to Europe
The ranking will tell more after everyone has at least one score this season but I just like the maths and guessing game

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[Karen-W]

Yes I must admit I was too lazy to figure out how much Jacob get's for 2nd CS if he has only one score yet.
Torgy got 234,35 at Golden Midwest NQS which goes into calculation as 58,59. Compared to the 30 he gets for Nationals it's not too bad and the competition was on his practice rink so he didn't have to travel for it at all.
Max might do the same since there is one NQS in Norwood in October but it's also very close to the French GP. I don't know how far ahead he will fly to Europe
The ranking will tell more after everyone has at least one score this season but I just like the maths and guessing game

Most of the skaters/teams who have international assignments are going to earn way more points from those competitions than they will by competing in the NQS. What I found last season, when I first began tracking points with the new USFS selection pool calculation table was that the full picture didn't really settle in until after the GPF/Challengers wrapped up in early December.

 

[Kiki5375]

how many Challengers can each Skater do? I noticed that Hiwatashi will take part in his 3rd challenger this season. Very busy man but do all count for average score or just the 2 best?

 

[kwanfan1818]

As the selection document says in Appendix B, where all of the inputs are listed, there are two values for Challenger Series:

Challenger Series/Senior B/Junior International
Highest

Highest score with a factor of 1

Challenger Series/Senior B/Junior International
Average

Average score with a factor of .75 (if athlete/team has only one event
in this category 80% of their first event score will be added to the
second event column to determine an average)

As the Challenger Series Announcement says, skaters can enter a max of three/discipline.