Gabriela Juarez-Rivas, Isabeau Levito, Amber Glenn Secure Three Spots for U.S. Women at 2027 Worlds

4/11/2026

By: Troy Schwindt and Lynn Rutherford

With their third- and fifth-place finishes at the ISU Figure Skating World Championships 2026 in Prague, Czech Republic, Gabriela Juarez-Rivas and Isabeau Levito, along with Amber Glenn's seventh-place finish, have qualified three U.S. entries into next season's World Championships, to be held in Tampere, Finland. Juarez-Rivas led the American women with the bronze medal, the highest finish by a U.S. woman at this year's event.

Gabriela Juarez-Rivas, competing at her second senior World Championships after a sixth-place finish in Boston last year, delivered a season-best performance across both segments of the competition. The California-based skater posted 76.26 in the short program on Wednesday to sit third overnight, then delivered a clean Carmen free skate on Friday that earned her 148.81 in the segment and 225.07 overall for the bronze medal, finishing behind gold medalist Kaori Sakamoto of Japan and silver medalist Mone Chiba of Japan.

Skating to The Phantom of the Opera in the short program, Juarez-Rivas opened with a triple Lutz-triple loop combination and earned level four designations on all spins and footwork. In the free skate, she again opened with a strong triple Lutz-triple loop combination and completed her remaining jumping passes without error, including a triple flip-double toe loop-double loop in the second half of the program that was among the segment's highest-scoring elements. Her short program and free skate scores of 76.26 and 148.81 represent the highest combined total by a U.S. woman at this year's World Championships.

"When I saw that I had come third I honestly did not register it at first," Juarez-Rivas said. "And then when I watched Mone skate I started tearing up and it just suddenly hit me that I was actually a medallist. I have to sleep on it I think, because it still does not feel real. I just tried to do my best and I was really happy with my performance. Achieving this result after the Olympics and after such a difficult season, it is just so special and I am just so, so happy."

Gabriela Juarez-Rivas was named first alternate to the U.S. Olympic team following the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January and was subsequently confirmed as a member of the World Championship team after Olympic champion Alysa Liu withdrew from the event following her gold medal win at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games.

Isabeau Levito, the 2024 World silver medalist, led the way among the remaining U.S. women with a radiant free skate to Ennio Morricone's "Cinema Paradiso."

Despite a shaky opening triple Lutz-triple loop combination that was judged underrotated, the remainder of the program, which included five triple jumps and elegant spins and steps, was clean and strong. Her triple Lutz-double toe loop-double loop in the second half of the program particularly shined, generating a program-high 10.13 points.

Levito earned 134.83 points in the free skate for 206.99 points in total. The Mount Holly, New Jersey skater has now placed in the top five in four consecutive trips to the World Championships.

"I had a lot of fun training hard for this competition, because it was a fun combo for me," Levito said. "I enjoyed training it a lot, and I feel like I was confident going into today's free skate. I was surprised, and then disappointed, that it didn't go the way that would logically make sense given my consistency. But it's OK. I'm fifth at Worlds, which is still a good accomplishment."

Amber Glenn, the three-time and reigning U.S. champion, sat fourth after Wednesday's short program but fell to ninth in the free skate for seventh place overall.

Performing to Audiomachine's "I Will Find You" and "The Return" by Clann, the Colorado Springs-based skater opened with a clean triple Axel, the only one of the evening, followed by two solid combinations including a triple flip-triple toe loop that tallied 11.01 points. However, halfway through the program Glenn faltered on a triple loop, popping it into a single, and made minor mistakes in her two final jumping passes, earning 130.47 points in the segment and 203.12 overall.

"I'm feeling disappointment," Glenn said. "I just lost focus. I did the hard stuff and let the easy things kind of get away from me."

In ice dance, reigning U.S. silver medalists and 2026 Olympians Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik finished third in the free dance to claim the bronze medal in their World Championships debut, having entered the final segment less than a point out of medal position after notching an international personal best 84.21 points for their dynamic rhythm dance performance to "Poison" and "Something in Your Eyes" by Bell Biv DeVoe. The Novi, Michigan-based team electrified the Prague audience with their rousing fusion of 1990s style pop and hip hop, gaining more than 10 points for their perfectly synchronized level four sequential twizzles. They also secured level four marks for their exciting rotational lift.

"This is kind of the cherry on top of the cake for us," Zingas said of their Worlds experience. "It's been difficult to get here, but we want to capitalize on this opportunity and do the best we possibly can."

"It's been a long journey," Zingas added. "I think from the beginning of the season, I remember we competed in the Japanese Challenger, and I was a little bit discouraged after that competition because we didn't quite get the result that we wanted to. We were excited for these programs, and I feel like both of these programs are great vehicles for us. After that Challenger when we got home, we had a frank conversation saying this is what we need to do, this is what we want. And after we made that plan to do the work, and we did it, I feel so happy that we had that moment of maybe a down run in the beginning of the season to light a fire under us and set us on the path to success this season."

Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko earned an international season's best 80.89 points in the rhythm dance, highlighted by their level four rotational lift, sequential twizzles and pattern step sequence, which earned 12.32 points. They finished seventh overall in the free dance.

"We put in so much hard work and Scott really pushed us to the limit in this program, so we're happy to have skated it that way," Ponomarenko said. "We're looking for that momentum to carry us in the free dance."

"He brought a lot of passion to the rink these last few weeks," Carreira added. "The amount of parts that we drilled and run-throughs and we had to skate 100% consistently, I think it helped us because we got out there, and I definitely think that is a step up from what we've been doing."

Caroline Green and Michael Parsons, who were first alternates for this event and were subbed in to compete when Olympic silver medalists and three-time World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates withdrew, incorporated touches of humor in their fresh and lively program to a pop selection featuring Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy." With their level four rotational lift as a highlight, they earned 76.42 points for 13th place.

"It was a good skate," Parsons said. "We enjoyed it. It wasn't as clean as we wanted it to be, but we didn't come here looking for a specific score or a specific placement. We came here to just leave ourselves on the ice and I think we did that today."

"We've been preparing for this event since Four Continents, so it wasn't a big surprise for us to get the call," Green said. "When we came back from Four Continents, we had the mindset that the best-case scenario is we go to Prague, the worst-case scenario is we don't, but we're in good shape."

Competition concluded Saturday, April 11, with the men's free skate and free dance. All events are available to stream on demand on Peacock. NBC and USA Network also broadcast the competition. To view the full TV schedule, visit the U.S. Figure Skating website.