U.S. Figure Skating Championships

The U.S. Figure Skating Championships are held annually to crown the national champions of the United States. Skaters compete in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance at the senior and junior levels. The event is organized by U.S. Figure Skating, the sport's national governing body. Pewter medals have been awarded to the fourth-place finishers in each event since 1988. The competition's results are among the criteria used to determine the American teams to the World Championships, World Junior Championships, Four Continents Championships, and Winter Olympics.
Roger Turner currently holds the record for winning the most U.S. championships in men's singles (with seven), while Maribel Vinson and Michelle Kwan are tied for the most championships in women's singles (with nine each). Theresa Weld-Blanchard and Nathaniel Niles hold the record in pair skating (with nine), while Meryl Davis and Charlie White, and Madison Chock and Evan Bates, are tied for winning the most championships in ice dance (with six each).
The 2026 U.S. Championships are scheduled to be held in St. Louis, Missouri.
The inaugural championship took place in 1914 in New Haven, Connecticut. Norman Scott of Canada won the men's event as well as the pairs event with his partner, Jeanne Chevalier. Theresa Weld of the United States won the women's event. No competitions were held from 1915 to 1917 due to World War I and again in 1919. The championships returned in 1920 and have been held continuously since.
Men's singles, women's singles, and pair skating have been contested since the championships began. Ice dance was added in 1936, incorporating the waltz, fourteenstep, tango, and foxtrot. A live orchestra provided the music.
There were no total interruptions to the championships due to World War II as there had been during World War I; only the senior men's events were cancelled in 1944 and 1945, because all but one of the skaters who would have competed had enlisted in the military. Arthur Preusch II, the only remaining senior men's competitor, instead performed in exhibition.
Roughly two weeks after the 1961 U.S. Championships, the airplane carrying most of the U.S. national team to the World Championships in Prague crashed while on approach to Brussels Airport in Belgium. All passengers on board Sabena Flight 548 were killed, including all of the recently-crowned U.S. champions: men's champion Bradley Lord, women's champion Laurence Owen, pairs champions Maribel Owen and Dudley Richards, and ice dance champions Diane Sherbloom and Larry Pierce. Nine-time U.S. champion and coach Maribel Vinson-Owen, mother of both Laurence and Maribel, was on the flight as well. Also killed were men's silver medalist Gregory Kelley, women's silver medalist Stephanie Westerfeld, women's bronze medalist Rhode Lee Michelson, pairs silver medalists Ila Ray Hadley and Ray Hadley Jr., pairs bronze medalists Laurie Hickox and William Hickox, ice dance silver medalists Dona Lee Carrier and Roger Campbell, and ice dance bronze medalists Patricia Dineen and Robert Dineen, in addition to fourteen family members, coaches, and skating officials who were accompanying the team. Out of respect, the 1961 World Championships were cancelled the next day. It took the rest of the decade for U.S. figure skating to recover from the sudden loss of so many top-tier athletes and other related personnel. At the 1962 U.S. Championships, "Scott Allen won the silver medal in the men’s event at just 12 years old, a shocking example of how thin the field was after the tragedy".
Pewter medals have been awarded to the fourth-place finishers in each event beginning with the 1988 U.S. Championships. Photographs of the champions from the event show four medalists on the podium, and while the caption identifies the fourth-place medalist as simply "fourth", they are clearly seen wearing a medal. The fourth-place medalist was simply credited as "fourth place" through 2012, but beginning with the 2013 U.S. Championships, they were identified as pewter medalists.
Compulsory figures, which had always been a required element of men's and women's single skating, were retired after the 1990 U.S. Championships, although they continued as a separate event for men and women from 1991 to 1999, when they were retired altogether.
On January 6, 1994, one day before she was scheduled to compete at the 1994 U.S. Championships, Nancy Kerrigan was struck above the knee by an assailant wielding a baton, and was forced to withdraw from the competition. Subsequent investigations determined that the assailant had been hired by the ex-husband of fellow skater Tonya Harding, with the intention of preventing Kerrigan from competing at the U.S. Championships and the upcoming Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Although Harding had originally won the women's event at the 1994 U.S. Championships, U.S. Figure Skating later stripped her of that title.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 U.S. Championships were still held, albeit in a sealed arena with no live audience present. The sound of an audience was piped into the arena, seats were filled with fan cutouts, and the athletes' friends and families could be seen cheering them on via strategically-placed monitors.
Three days after the 2025 U.S. Championships, a group of twenty-eight skaters, coaches, and family members flying to Washington, D.C., were killed when their airplane collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River. Coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, the parents of U.S. skater Maxim Naumov, who had just won the pewter medal in the senior men's event, were among those killed.
Qualification for the U.S. Championships begins at one of nine regional competitions. The regions are New England, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Upper Great Lakes, Eastern Great Lakes, Southwestern, Northwest Pacific, Central Pacific, and Southwest Pacific. The top four finishers in each regional advance to one of three sectional competitions (Eastern, Midwestern, and Pacific Coast). Skaters who place in the top four at sectionals advance to the U.S. Championships.
Skaters can also receive byes to the competition. Skaters can earn the right at the U.S. Championships without qualifying through a sectional championship by accomplishing any of the following:
During the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons, the traditional qualification system was replaced with the Championship Series due to the impact of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on figure skating. The 2021 U.S. Championship Series took place in a virtual format from November 10 through December 6. The top scorers from the series in junior and senior men's singles, women's singles, and pair skating, as well as junior ice dance, advanced to the 2021 U.S. Championships. All senior ice dance teams who registered for the in-person qualifying season also advanced to the championships.
The 2022 U.S. Championship Series was a series of eight competitions held from October 4 through November 20.
Beginning with the 2022–23 season, regional competitions were combined to form a series of competitions running from mid-July to early October: the National Qualifying Series. Skaters with the top scores within the National Qualifying Series then qualify for a National Qualifying Series Finals competition (Pacific Coast Sectional Finals, Eastern Sectional Finals, Midwestern Sectional Finals, U.S. Ice Dance Finals, or U.S. Pairs Finals).
The top juvenile, intermediate, and top novice skaters are invited to the National High Performance Development Camp, while top novice, junior, and senior skaters advance to the U.S. Championships.
Competitions in compulsory figures were held for the last time at the 1999 U.S. Championships in Salt Lake City.