The figure skating season begins in earnest as the top returning Olympic medalists in all four disciplines headline Grand Prix France, live on Peacock this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Grand Prix is a series of six regular season competitions — where top skaters are scattered at different events, each skating twice — that qualify the top six per discipline into December’s Grand Prix Final.

2026 Grand Prix France Broadcast Schedule

Mikhail Shaidorov, the surprise 2026 Olympic champion from Kazakhstan, seeks his first victory on the Grand Prix circuit.

Shaidorov faces France’s top singles skater -- Adam Siao Him Fa, who finished third, fourth and fifth at the last three World Championships. Plus Americans Jacob Sanchez and Jimmy Ma.

France is also represented by Olympic ice dance gold medalists Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.

Their top challengers could be Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, the U.S. bronze medalists who can continue a strong American ice dance tradition with Olympic silver medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates taking at least this season off.

This week’s women’s field is led by Olympic bronze medalist Ami Nakai of Japan, the top returning woman with Alysa Liu taking the season off and Kaori Sakamoto retired.

Nakai, 18, had her breakout in France in 2025, when she won her senior Grand Prix debut with a score that would have taken gold at the Milan Cortina Games.

This year, she’ll face Belgian Nina Pinzarrone and Italian Lara Naki Gutmann, who were third and fifth at last March’s World Championships. Plus American Sarah Everhardt, who was 11th in her world debut in March.

Olympic silver medalists Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia are also in the field. They are the top returning pair from Milan after gold medalists Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara retired.

Grand Prix France will be a measuring stick for Russians Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskiy, who compete internationally for the first time since placing fourth in pairs at the 2022 Olympics.

Russian and Belarusian skaters who do not support the war in Ukraine are allowed to return to Grand Prix-level competition as neutral athletes this season for the first time since the start of the war.

Last season, select singles skaters from Russia and Belarus were allowed to compete in an Olympic qualifier and, if they qualified, the Milan Cortina Games.