2016 Team Challenge Cup Official Announcement
SYWTW FS
The ISU has published the official announcement for the Team Challenge Cup taking place in Spokane, WA, USA on April 22-24. This is a new team competition that is a bit of a mix between Japan Open and World Team Trophy. There will be 3 teams - Europe, North America, and Asia. Each team will have 3 ladies, 3 men, 2 pairs and 2 dance teams. At least two countries must be represented in each discipline for each team - eg. two ladies on a team can be from the same country, but the third cannot. Two of the ladies and men and all of the pairs and ice dancers for each team will be chosen from the top-ranked skaters on the ISU World Standings as of January 1, 2016. (Basically, only competitions from the first half of the season count towards qualification.) If any invited skaters withdraw, the next-highest-ranked skater will be invited. The third singles skaters for each team will be chosen through a fan vote that will take place during 2016 Worlds. The third singles skaters for each team must be a participant at 2016 Worlds and will be chosen from a pool of 5 skaters nominated by the TCC organizers.
Going by those rules, these are the teams according to the current World Standings (last updated 12/12; there are no more relevant ISU competitions held between then and Jan. 1):
TEAM EUROPE
Men: Javier Fernandez (ESP), Sergei Voronov (RUS), 3rd skater TBD
Ladies: Elizaveta Tuktamysheva (RUS), Roberta Rodeghiero (ITA), 3rd skater TBD
Pairs: Ksenia Stolbova/Fedor Klimov (RUS), Nicole Della Monica/Matteo Guarise (ITA)
Dance: Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte (ITA), Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron (FRA)
TEAM NORTH AMERICA
Men: Jason Brown (USA), Nam Nguyen (CAN), 3rd skater TBD
Ladies: Gracie Gold (USA), Gabrielle Daleman (CAN), 3rd skater TBD
Pairs: Meagan Duhamel/Eric Radford (CAN), Alexa Scimeca/Chris Knierim (USA)
Dance: Kaitlyn Weaver/Andrew Poje (CAN), Madison Chock/Evan Bates (USA)
TEAM ASIA
Men: Yuzuru Hanyu (JPN), Denis Ten (KAZ), 3rd skater TBD
Ladies: Satoko Miyahara (JPN), Elizabet Tursynbaeva (KAZ), 3rd skater TBD
Pairs: Wenjing Sui/Cong Han (CHN), Tae Ok Ryom/Ju Sik Kim (PRK)*
Dance: Rebeka Kim/Kirill Minov (KOR), Shiyue Wang/Xinyu Liu (CHN)
(*If Ryom/Kim from North Korea decline the invitation (which…seems pretty likely), there are no other Asian countries with pairs teams on the ISU World Standings list, as Kim/Kam from South Korea have split. Japan’s new team Suto/Boudreau-Audet competed at 2015 Golden Spin of Zagreb, but placed 7th and did not earn any ranking points. In this case I’m not sure if the ISU will allow Suto/Boudreau-Audet to compete, another Chinese pair to compete, or if Team Asia will have to compete with only one pair.)
See the announcement for information on the format of the competition.