At the Junior Grand Prix Final this week, there are a number of skaters who—four years ago—we thought would be competing at the Olympics and not still on the junior circuit. But the age eligibility changes during this Olympic cycle means that someone like Mao Shimada will be vying for herfourth Junior Grand Prix Final title. But it also means that skaters who had been tracking to peak for the Olympics in 2026 will be making this Junior Grand Prix Final pretty amazing.
2025 Junior Grand Prix Final
Official hashtag: #JGPFigure | Unofficial hashtag: #JGPF
Junior Men Predictions
GOLD Rio Nakata JPN
SILVER Minkyu Seo KOR
BRONZE Habin Choi KOR
4. Taiga Nishino JPN
5. Lucius Kazanecki USA
6. Denis Krouglov BEL
Rio Nakata has been so on this season. The champion here two years ago, he’s been plagued in previous seasons by a bit of inconsistency, which has led to some up and down results. But he has been locked in this season—even after an injury a few weeks ago, he came back and won Japanese Junior Nationals in style, and he will be looking to avenge his bronze medal from last season with a second win. Closest to him in all-around skating will be Minkyu Seo, who is just coming off a career-best performance at the Korean Ranking Competition, where he won the whole thing on the senior level and landed his first quad in competition. Habin Choi, third at the same Ranking Competition, is also a podium favorite, with the technical difficulty to contend.
Junior Pairs Predictions
GOLD Ava Kemp/Yohnathan Elizarov CAN
SILVER Xuanqi Zheng/Wenqiang Feng CHN
BRONZE Rui Guo/Yiwen Zhang CHN
4. Jazmine Desrochers/Kieran Thrasher CAN
5. Yuxuan Chen/Yinbo Dong CHN
6. Julia Quattrocchi/Etienne Lacasse CAN
It’s been Ava Kemp/Yohnathan Elizarov’s junior season so far—with the highest junior pair scores of the season, they have been putting out senior pair content on the junior scene, and they are the favorites for the title after taking silver here two years ago. This event will be all Canada and China, and China’s rebuilding of their pairs program has become very evident in the three teams who qualified for this Final. Xuanqi Zheng/Wenqiang Feng and Rui Guo/Yiwen Zhang are the podium contenders, especially with Guo/Zhang’s quad twist in the mix.
Junior Dance Predictions
GOLD Hana Maria Aboian/Daniil Veselukhin USA
SILVER Iryna Pidgaina/Artem Koval UKR
BRONZE Layla Veillon/Alexander Brandys CAN
4. Ambre Perrier Gianesini/Samuel Blanc Klaperman FRA
5. Dania Mouaden/Theo Bigot FRA
6. Jasmine Robertson/Chase Rohner USA
As we often find in junior ice dance fields, the battle for the podium will be a close one. And so much of it will depend on the cleanness of elements and called levels, which make such a difference when so many of the teams have been so evenly matched. But if there’s a favorite here, we should point to Hana Maria Aboian/Daniil Veselukhin, who just missed making it here last year but have made some very strong improvements over the past season. Iryna Pidgaina/Artem Koval were fourth here last year and are likely the biggest challengers for the title to Aboian/Veselukhin. It will likely to continue to be the two of these teams battling it out at Junior Worlds later this season as well. Either way, this podium could be anyone’s game.
Junior Women Predictions
GOLD Mao Shimada JPN
SILVER Yujae Kim KOR
BRONZE Mayuko Oka JPN
4. Yuseong Kim KOR
5. Mei Okada JPN
6. Sumika Kanazawa JPN
Much like the pairs event, the women’s event will be a showdown between two countries. Japan and South Korea each have three skaters here. And five of the six here have a triple axel in their repertoire (and four of them recently landed theirs). Mao Shimada may be the favorite for her fourth title, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. She’s had an injury this season that has kept her from putting down clean skates, especially given the difficulty of the content in her free skate. And just two weeks ago at Japan Junior Nationals, Mayuko Oka almost beat Shimada for the title. Yujae Kim is coming off a strong Korean Ranking Competition last weekend, where she took second and beat all but one of the senior skaters there.