All skaters that represent an ISU member nations and reached the age of 15 before 1 July 2013 were eligible to compete at the World Championships. National associations select entries according to their own criteria but the ISU rules mandate that their athletes must have achieved the required minimum technical score at an international event prior to the World Championships in order to be eligible to contest this event.
Japan was named as the host in June 2011.[26] Saitama was confirmed as the city in February 2013.[27]
Olympic bronze medalists, Aliona Savchenko / Robin Szolkowy of Germany, took the lead in the pairs' short program, two points ahead of Canada's Meagan Duhamel / Eric Radford, who edged Olympic silver medalists Ksenia Stolbova / Fedor Klimov of Russia by under a point. Savchenko/Szolkowy ranked first in the free skating by a six-point margin and won their fifth World title by an overall margin of nearly nine points. Stolbova/Klimov were awarded their first World medal, silver, finishing five points ahead of Duhamel/Radford. The latter pair outscored fellow Canadians Kirsten Moore-Towers / Dylan Moscovitch for the bronze for the second year in a row.
Japan's Tatsuki Machida ranked first in the men's short program, with Spain's Javier Fernández and 2014 Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu in second and third respectively. Hanyu placed first in the free skating and won his first World title. Silver went to Machida, finishing 0.33 of a point behind Hanyu. Finishing six points back, Fernández won his second World bronze medal.
The ice dancing event was closely contested. Two points separated the top four in the short dance. 2014 European champions, Anna Cappellini / Luca Lanotte of Italy, took the lead, outscoring Canada's Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje by 0.5 and France's Nathalie Pechalat / Fabian Bourzat by 1.5. Slightly under three points separated the top four in the free dance and the overall scores were even closer. Cappellini/Lanotte became the second Italian ice dancers to win the World title, finishing 0.02 of a point ahead of silver medalists Weaver/Poje and 0.06 ahead of Pechalat/Bourzat, who won their second World bronze medal. 2014 Olympic bronze medalists, Elena Ilinykh / Nikita Katsalapov of Russia, placed first in the segment but finished off the podium, just 1.05 behind the gold medalists.
2008 and 2010 World champion, Mao Asada of Japan, broke the previous world record set by Kim Yuna in the short program, scoring 78.66, 1.42 points ahead of the 2012 World champion, Carolina Kostner of Italy, and 4.12 ahead of the 2014 European champion, Yulia Lipnitskaya. Asada also placed first in the free skating by a margin of five points. Lipnitskaya and Anna Pogorilaya, both 15-year-old Russians, were second and third respectively and Kostner placed sixth in the segment. Asada won her third world title by a total margin of 9.19 points, Lipnitskaya was awarded the silver medal in her first appearance at the World Championships, and Kostner took the bronze, her sixth World medal.
^"Joshi och Alexander uttagna till VM" [Joshi and Alexander selected for the World Championships]. Skate Sweden (in Swedish). 28 February 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-03-02. Retrieved 2014-03-02.
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