We are coming off a very exciting women’s event at Grand Prix de France into what is shaping up to be another exciting one at NHK Trophy this week. The three Japanese women entered here will all be podium contenders at Japan Nationals; the three American women entered here will all be podium contenders at US Nationals. Just the prospect of those matchups alone make this event very much a must-watch. The results could be closer than we may think.
NHK Trophy predictions
Official hashtags: #NHK杯フィギュア #GPFigure
GOLD Kaori Sakamoto JPN - Though Sakamoto won Skate Canada two weeks ago, her free skate there was very much a subpar showing for her, with two falls. She’s experimenting with a different free skate layout this season, which she hasn’t built the trust in quite yet this season. But if practice is any indication, all those jumps are there, it’s a matter of trusting those runthroughs. She’s the favorite this week, but given what we’ve seen this season so far, this is no guarantee.
SILVER Mone Chiba JPN - Fourth at Nebelhorn among a very strong-performing field, Chiba missed out on the podium there because of a bunch of rotation calls on her jumps in the free skate. She tends to get better as the season goes on, and it will be important for her to clean up those jumps to have any chance at challenging for gold.
BRONZE Yuna Aoki JPN - Aoki has shown so much promise for years and she’s finally been putting strong competitions together. But her technical content is ambitious and with risk comes both reward and inconsistency. She had a strong free skate at Skate America after issues in the short program left her in tenth. She will be looking to put two strong programs together this week if she is to contend for that podium, which she is more than capable of.
4. Bradie Tennell USA - Fifth at Skate America, Tennell had a very promising return to the Grand Prix there, with the difference between her final placement and the win being a popped triple lutz. She will get a chance to make amends here, all leading up to her return to the US Championships, where she’s looking to get back onto the World team.
5. Alysa Liu USA - In her first Grand Prix appearance since 2021, Liu took second in the short but eventually finished sixth after underrotation calls dropped her free skate. The short has been her strength this season so far, and she will be hoping that a couple more weeks of training have gotten her conditioning to a better point this week.
6. Niina Petrokina EST - Petrokina continues her recovery from the injury that took her out of a couple of months last season. The triple-triple is back in her free skate, which is a promising sign, and she comes into NHK after a silver medal finish at Trophy Metropole Nice, her best performances since last year on the Grand Prix Series.
7. Lindsay Thorngren USA - Fourth at Budapest Trophy a few weeks ago, Thorngren put down a very solid short program but then got dinged for a number of underrotations in the free skate. Her jumps tend to be very close on rotation, and she will need to be much more precise this week if she is to repeat as a medalist at NHK.
8. Lara Naki Gutmann ITA - Gutmann is one of the quirkiest skaters of this generation, and she continues to be a niche favorite among fans. She has been very inconsistent in her career, and it’s been the same this season, with a free skate as low as 93 points at Lombardia and then almost hitting 130 just a few weeks later at Denis Ten Memorial.
9. Ekaterina Kurakova POL - She had a nightmare short program two weeks ago in Halifax, but come back with a good free skate to finish ninth there. She’s getting used to her new coaching environment, and NHK will be a next step for her here.
10. Olga Mikutina AUT - At her best, Mikutina has the technical content and the strong basics to compete with the best in the world. She will need to find her consistency to get there, and we saw some solid signs from her at Skate America in her ninth-place finish.
11. Seoyeong Wi KOR - Underrotations have been a big issue for Wi, particularly at Skate Canada, where she landed most of her jumping passes but only got one triple called clean.
12. Yelim Kim KOR - Her performances en route to a 12th-place at Skate Canada showed that she’s not back to where she was a couple years ago. But she showed that she’s got a lot of her content back and needs the consistency to go along with it.