The US pairs team of Efimova and Mitrofanov is ready for their season debut at Skate America

Ilia Malinin, the three-time world champion whose spectacular letdown at the Milan Cortina Olympics became one of the biggest storylines of the Winter Games, will demand plenty of attention when he makes his season debut at Skate America this weekend.

Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov might soon be sharing the spotlight.

The top American pairs team for the better part of three years, Efimova and Mitrofanov were unable to compete alongside Malinin on figure skating's grandest stage because the Finland-born Efimova was unable to secure U.S. citizenship in time.

That's a requirement for competing at the Olympics, so the husband-and-wife pair — Mitrofanov was born in Wisconsin — had been hoping that a last-ditch effort by everyone from figure skating officials to members of Congress could secure her passport.

The deadline came and went without it. And the Winter Games came and went without Efimova and Mitrofanov.

Now, as they prepare for Skate America on Friday night, the pair is beginning a four-year grind toward the next Olympics in France, content in the knowledge that Efimova's citizenship almost certainly will have been approved by then.

“We've talked about it. Definitely, the Olympics does feel a long way,” Mitrofanov told The Associated Press. "It's nice knowing it shouldn't be a problem, everything is going according to plan for 2030. But we don't know. We like facts. When she gets citizenship, when we're eligible for the Olympics, we'll be looking forward to the Olympics.

“But at the same time,” he added, “we're taking it season by season.”

This season actually began for Efimova and Mitrofanov a couple of weeks ago at Skate Canada, where they finished second to Canadian champions Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud. But it is Skate America that holds a special place in their hearts.

It was there two years ago that Efimova and Mitrofanov earned a bronze medal, their first at a Grand Prix event.

“I get chills," Efimova said, “just because I have such a good feeling about the event.”

Efimova and Mitrofanov will be joined in the pairs field by the American duos of Katie McBeath and Balazs Nagy, and Audrey Shin and Spencer Akira Howe. It was Howe, with former partner Emily Chan, who was the beneficiary of Efimova's citizenship situation, earning the second pairs spot on the U.S. team that went to the Winter Olympics.

Their biggest rivals this weekend, though, will be Olympic bronze medalists Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany.

“Our focus is to put out two good skates at Skate America,” Mitrofanov, “and we'll see where it goes from there.”

The 21-year-old Malinin is heavily favored to win his fourth Skate America title when the competition begins Friday night in Everett, Washington. Malinin could have taken time off after his failure at the Olympics, where a disastrous free skate left him without an individual medal at all, but he decided to not only defend his world title earlier this year but compete this season, too.

Malinin will debut a short program that pays tribute to the figure skaters who lost their lives in January 2025, when American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a military helicopter and fell into the icy Potomac River near Washington, D.C.

The men's Skate America field is relatively weak with Italy's Daniel Grassl and Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia podium contenders.

The International Skating Union is allowing Russian athletes to compete this season, adopting a neutrality protocol similar to the one used for the Winter Games. That means Adeliia Petrosian, the three-time Russian champion, will be making her Grand Prix debut with teammate Alexandra Ignatova — the 2022 Olympic silver medalist, when she went by her maiden name, Trusova.

Ignatova won Skate America in 2021, before Russian athletes were barred from competing due to their nation's invasion of Ukraine.

The biggest competition for Petrosian and Ignatova will be Ami Nakai, the Olympic bronze medalist from Japan.

The U.S. planned to send Olympic champion Alysa Liu and U.S. champ Amber Glenn to Skate America, but they withdrew while taking a break from competition. Alexa Gasparotto, Logan Higase-Chen and Sophie Joline von Felton will represent the home nation.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the longtime American ice dance standard-bearers, are no longer competing after winning team gold and individual silver at the Milan Cortina Games. And that leaves the Skate America ice dance field without a clear favorite.

Chock and Bates' Olympic teammates, Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, will be making their season debut. Others to watch include Evgeniia Lopareva and Geoffrey Brissaud of France, and Holly Harris and Jason Chan of Australia.

See AP’s full sports coverage here