2022-23 US Sectionals & National Qualifying Overview

The 2022-23 US Sectional Finals will take place from Nov. 7-13. The competitions are one step in the process for skaters to qualify for the 2023 US National Championships.

Reference: 2023 Athlete Bye and Advancement Criteria, 2023 NQS Athlete Handbook, 2023 NQS Competition Central

See also: 2022-23 Nationals tag

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NATIONAL QUALIFYING STRUCTURE

Skaters can qualify to US Nationals through a combination of byes or through the Sectional Finals: Eastern Singles Sectionals & Ice Dance Final, Midwestern Singles Sectionals & Pairs Final, and Pacific Coast Singles Sectionals. Skaters qualify for Sectionals by competing in various National Qualifying competitions from July to September.

Senior Singles (18 spots available at Nationals):

• Top 5 at the previous US National Championships

• Skaters selected to the previous World Championships

• Skaters who have won a medal at the most recent Winter Olympics

• Skaters who qualified for the current season’s Junior or Senior Grand Prix Final

• Skaters who were assigned to and competed at 3 international competitions in the current season (ISU Grand Prix, Junior Grand Prix, or Challenger Series)

• Top 2 skaters from each section in the Sectional Singles Finals

• Next best total scores from all Sectionals combined until quota is met

Senior Pairs (12 spots available at Nationals):

• Top 5 at the previous US National Championships

• Teams selected to the previous World Championships

• Teams who have won a medal at the most recent Winter Olympics

• Teams who qualified for the current season’s Junior or Senior Grand Prix Final

• Teams who were assigned to and competed at 3 international competitions in the current season (ISU Grand Prix, Junior Grand Prix, or Challenger Series)

• Top 4 teams from the US Pairs Final

• Next best teams from the Pairs Final until quota is met

Senior Ice Dance (15 spots available at Nationals):

• Top 5 at the previous US National Championships

• Teams selected to the previous World Championships

• Teams who have won a medal at the most recent Winter Olympics

• Teams who qualified for the current season’s Junior or Senior Grand Prix Final

• Teams who were assigned to and competed at 3 international competitions in the current season (ISU Grand Prix, Junior Grand Prix, or Challenger Series)

• Top 5 teams from the US Ice Dance Final

• Next best teams from the Ice Dance Final until quota is met

Junior Singles (18 spots available at Nationals):

• Skaters who qualified for the current season’s Junior Grand Prix Final

• Skaters who were assigned to and competed at 3 international competitions in the current season (ISU Junior Grand Prix or Challenger Series)

• Top 4 junior skaters from each section in the Sectional Singles Finals

• Top 2 novice skaters from each section in the Sectional Singles Finals

Junior Pairs (12 spots available at Nationals):

• Teams who qualified for the current season’s Junior Grand Prix Final

• Teams who were assigned to and competed at 3 international competitions in the current season (ISU Junior Grand Prix or Challenger Series)

• Top 9 junior teams from the US Pairs Final

• Next best junior teams from the Pairs Final until quota is met

Junior Ice Dance (15 spots available at Nationals):

• Teams who qualified for the current season’s Junior Grand Prix Final

• Teams who were assigned to and competed at 3 international competitions in the current season (ISU Junior Grand Prix or Challenger Series)

• Top 12 junior teams from the US Ice Dance Final

• Next best junior teams from the Ice Dance Final until quota is met

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SECTIONAL COMPETITIONS

Senior and junior events from all 3 competitions will be livestreamed for Peacock Premium subscribers. Novice and lower levels will be livestreamed on the US Figure Skating Fanzone.

Midwestern Sectionals & Pairs Final

• Nov. 7-10, East Lansing, MI

• Disciplines: men, women, pairs

• Results & entries

• Schedule

• Website

• Notable entries: Senior - Joseph Klein, Maxim Zharkov, Sonja Hilmer, Sonia Baram/Daniel Tioumentsev. Junior - Phoebe Stubblefield, Logan Higase-Chen

Eastern Sectionals & Ice Dance Final

• Nov. 8-12, Norwood, MA

• Disciplines: men, women, ice dance

• Results & entries

• Website

• Notable entries: Senior - Maxim Naumov, Andrew Torgashev, Ava Ziegler, Lindsay Thorngren, Ting Cui, Angela Ling/Caleb Wein, Emilea Zingas/Vadym Kolesnik, Isabella Flores/Ivan Desyatov. Junior - Robert Yampolsky, Jacob Sanchez, Vanessa Pham/Jonathan Rogers, Elliana Peal/Ethan Peal, Helena Carhart/Volodymyr Horovyi, Leah Neset/Artem Markelov

Pacific Coast Sectionals

• Nov. 10-13, San Francisco, CA

• Disciplines: men, women

• Results & entries

• Schedule

• Website

• Notable entries: Senior - Yaroslav Paniot, Eric Sjoberg, Josephine Lee, Hanna Harrell. Junior - Soho Lee, Mia Kalin, Elyce Lin-Gracey

2018-19 US National Qualifying Competitions

During the months of October and November, American skaters will compete at regional and sectional championships across the country in order to qualify for the National Championships in January 2019. This post will explain the USFSA qualifying structure and provide a list of links and information that will be updated throughout the season.

Reference: US Figure Skating

See also: 2018-19 National Figure Skating Competitions

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QUALIFYING STRUCTURE

Skaters qualify for the US National Championships by competing at one of nine regional championships and one of three sectional championships (Eastern, Midwestern, and Pacific Coast). Singles skaters must enter the regional championships in the area where their home club is located. Pair and ice dance teams do not compete at regionals, only sectionals. Teams in which partners represent different clubs may choose to compete in the section of either one of their home clubs.

The top 4 finishers in each discipline at regionals advance to sectionals, and the top 4 finishers in each discipline at sectionals advance to nationals. If a regional/sectional event has 4 or fewer competitors entered in a discipline, all of the skaters automatically advance to the next competition. If there are 12 or fewer skaters entered in a discipline at all regional championships within a section, all of the skaters automatically advance to the sectional championships.

US Nationals and qualifying events have five levels of competition: juvenile, intermediate, novice, junior, and senior. Regional championships include events at all 5 levels for singles skaters. Sectional championships include events at all 5 levels for pairs and ice dance as well as singles. The US National Championships is a week-long competition, holding events for each discipline at each level.

Skaters can also advance directly to Nationals without competing at qualifying events in the following ways:

• Placing top 5 in a senior event at the previous US National Championships

• Winning a medal at the most recent Winter Olympics

• Winning a medal at the previous World Championships

• Qualifying for the current season’s Grand Prix Final or Junior Grand Prix Final

• Earning a bye due to an international assignment taking place at the same time as the sectional championships (skaters can also be exempted from regionals due to having an international assignment)

Skaters who have directly qualified for Nationals can still compete at regionals/sectionals if they want to, but they will not count towards the advancement quota.

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COMPETITIONS

Live and on-demand videos of the junior and senior regional/sectional championships are available to subscribers on NBC Gold. Lower levels will be livestreamed on the US Figure Skating Fanzone.

South Atlantic Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 3-7, Coral Springs, Florida

• Advance to: Eastern Sectionals

Upper Great Lakes Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 3-7, Peoria, Illinois

• Advance to: Midwestern Sectionals

Northwest Pacific Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 3-7, Sherwood, Oregon

• Advance to: Pacific Coast Sectionals

New England Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 10-14, Boston, Massachusetts

• Advance to: Eastern Sectionals

Southwestern Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 10-14, Plano, Texas

• Advance to: Midwestern Sectionals

Central Pacific Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 10-14, Vacaville, California

• Advance to: Pacific Coast Sectionals

North Atlantic Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 17-21, Lake Placid, New York

• Advance to: Eastern Sectionals

Eastern Great Lakes Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 17-21, Ann Arbor, Michigan

• Advance to: Midwestern Sectionals

Southwest Pacific Regionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Oct. 17-21, Anaheim, California

• Advance to: Pacific Coast Sectionals

Eastern Sectionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Nov. 13-17, Wake Forest, North Carolina

• Advance to: Nationals

Midwestern Sectionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Nov. 13-17, Fort Wayne, Indiana

• Advance to: Nationals

Pacific Coast Sectionals

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Nov. 13-17, Salt Lake City, Utah

• Advance to: Nationals

US National Championships

• Website

• Results

• Time and place: Jan. 19-27, Detroit, Michigan

2015 US Sectionals

Just a quick post about US Sectionals, which is also taking place this week along with Tallinn Trophy, Rostelecom Cup, and Japanese Junior Nationals. It’s a busy week in skating.

There are 3 sectional competitions in the United States: Pacific Coast, Midwestern and Eastern. It is the final step (after regionals) to qualify for the national championships in January. There are events for all levels, from juvenile to senior. I’m only going to mention seniors and juniors in this post.

Domestic US competitions give out “pewter medals” to 4th-place finishers. Medalists (ie. 1st-4th place) at sectionals qualify for the national championships. If one or more of the medalists already has a bye to nationals and is only competing at sectionals for practice or whatever reason, the next-highest skater(s) qualify for nationals. Sometimes, if a field has 4 competitors or fewer, skaters may choose not to compete since all of them would qualify anyway. (This scenario happens more often with pairs and ice dance.)

All the sectional competitions will be streamed live on Icenetwork for subscribers.

EASTERN SECTIONALS

Location: Simsbury, Connecticut
Date: Nov. 17-21
Schedule
Results

Some entries:

Senior - Ashley Cain, Olivia Serafini, Jimmy Ma, Curran Oi, Alexandria Shaughnessy/James Morgan, Jessica Pfund/Joshua Santillan

Junior - Brynne McIsaac, Rebecca Peng, Megan Wessenberg, Kevin Shum, Oleksiy Melnyk, Tony Lu, Joy Weinberg/Maximiliano Fernandez, Julia Biechler/Damian Dodge

MIDWESTERN SECTIONALS

Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Date: Nov. 17-21
Schedule
Results

Some entries:

Senior - Bradie Tennell, Livvy Shilling, Ashley Shin, Alexander Johnson, Vincent Zhou (bye), Jordan Moeller, Caitlin Fields/Ernie Utah Stevens, Alexandra Aldridge/Matthew Blackmer, Danielle Thomas/Daniel Eaton

Junior - Tessa Hong, Paige Rydberg, Vivian Le, Emily Chan, Tomoki Hiwatashi, Anthony Boucher, Chase Belmontes, Aleksei Krasnozhon, Lindsay Weinstein/Jacob Simon, Elliana Pogrebinsky/Alex Benoit

PACIFIC COAST SECTIONALS

Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: Nov. 17-21
Schedule
Results

Some entries:

Senior - Karen Chen (bye), Maria Yang, Sean Rabbitt, Shotaro Omori, Scott Dyer, Daniel Kulenkamp, Alissandra Aronow/Collin Brubaker

Junior - Akari Nakahara, Nina Ouelette, Alice Yang, Paolo Borromeo, Ai Setoyama/David-Alexandre Paradis, Christina Carreira/Anthony Ponomarenko, Chloe Lewis/Logan Bye