Home star Hanyu, a 2012 world bronze medallist, will be looking to claim his first world title, particularly in the absence of Canada's three-time world champion and double Olympic medallist Patrick Chan, who decided not to compete in the flagship tournament in the city about 30 kilometres north of Tokyo. 

He will, however, face tough competition from Spain's two-time European champion Javier Fernández, who is also a world bronze medallist, and compatriot Tatsuki Machida, fifth at Sochi 2014.

Youth Olympic champion Han Yan of China, reigning Russian national champion Maxim Kovtun, Germany Olympian Peter Liebers, Sochi 2014 team bronze medallist Jeremy Abbott of the United States and home athlete Takahiko Kozuka - a world silver medallist - will also be strong contenders aiming for the podium.

Carolina Kostner is the highest ranked athlete on the women's event at the 2014 ISU World Figure Skating Championships ©AFP/Getty Images


Sochi 2014 Olympic bronze medallist and 2012 world champion Carolina Kostner of Italy heads into the World Championships as the highest ranked athlete on the women's event.

Olympic team champion and current singles European champion Yulia Lipnitskaya of Russia, home athlete and two-time world champion Mao Asada and American Sochi 2014 team bronze medallist Gracie Gold will also be names to watch for in Saitama.

Germany's four-time world champions and two-time Olympic bronze medallist Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy are the favourites in the pairs event.

But Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov, fresh from their silver medal winning performance on home ice at Sochi 2014, will be standing in the way of the German's hopes of claiming a fifth world title.

China's reigning Four Continents champions Wenjing Sui and Cong Han will also be looking to medal in Japan, as will Canadian 2013 world bronze medallists Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, and their fellow Sochi 2014 team silver medallists Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch.

The ice dance competition appears open with the absence of Olympic and world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the US and Olympic and world silver medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada.

Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov will be the favourites for ice dance gold in Japan ©AFP/Getty Images


Russian Sochi 2014 bronze medallists Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov will instead be the favourites, but will face the challenge of compatriots and 2013 world bronze medallist Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitri Soloviev, Italy's reigning European champions Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, and French world bronze medallists Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat.

The Championships, which mark the fifth time they have been staged in Japan - Tokyo in 2007, 1985 and 1977, Nagano in 2002 and Makuhari in 1994, is expected to attract a total of 177 skaters/couples from 38 nations.

No preliminary rounds will be held as per the ISU Congress' decision in 2012.

Instead, all skaters and couples will compete in the short programme or short dance and the top 24 single skaters, top 16 pairs and 20 ice dance couples will go forward to the free skating and free dance.

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