A Beginner's Guide to the World Figure Skating Championships

Confused by how teams/countries are asked to participate in the World Figure Skating Championships? You’re not alone. Here is a beginner’s guide to how a skater gets to participate in the WFSC.

Trying to figure out how you get invited to the World Figure Skating Championships is utterly confusing. Part of the reason for this confusion is that the WFSC Governing Body is beyond reproach. Their system takes into account a number of different factors, some of which require a TI-85 calculator, other that are a little less ‘above board.’ As best I can tell, here is how they calculate who gets invited to their Championship:

1) Each major part of the world gets to have at least one skater invited to the championship. It need not matter how well your section of the world ranks compared to other parts, everybody should have the opportunity to compete. Even if your section of the world, let’s for argument sake call this part of the world Atlántico, or perhaps Eastlandia, has skaters that have a much lower amount of skills compared to other skaters from around the world. We must include skaters from this part of the world. However, if the opportunity presents itself to include an additional team from a part of the world, again for argument sake, let’s call that part of the world Southeast Scotia then the opportunity must be taken.

2) Part of the calculation includes allowing the coaches of world teams to vote on what countries should be included. These coaches shall be allowed to vote in whatever manner they see fit, no matter how outlandish the vote appears.

3) An additional part of the calculation includes allowing the network covering the event, let’s call this network Every Sports Partnership Network, and modify world rankings to only include Skaters that have a massive fan base. Every Sports Partnership Network acts as a middleman for the firms that will be advertising during the World Championship event.

4) Strength of currency must be taken into account. If Southeast Scotia or Big Endland has a stronger currency than Big Elkland, then we have to take that into account. Stronger currency obviously means that fans from those countries will be able to travel in larger numbers to the event.

5) It needn’t matter if your skater finished first within your regional or country championship, the rules contained above, are in hierarchal order.

Gaining entrance to the World Figure Skating Championship is confusing no doubt. Even though we’ve had 12 to 13 competitions worldwide, the Governing Body are the folks making all of the decisions. It is subjective in nature, however, it’s the best alternative that we have going. Hopefully this beginner’s guide was able to help navigate to you how different skaters got invited.