Budapest Trophy

Budapest Trophy
Budapest Trophy
Status	Active
Genre	International competition
Frequency	Annual
Venue	Vasas Jégcentrum
Location	Budapest
Country	Hungary
Inaugurated	2020
Previous event	2025
Next event	2026 Budapest Trophy
Organized by	Hungarian National Skating Federation

The Budapest Trophy is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU), organized and hosted by the Hungarian National Skating Federation (Hungarian: Magyar Országos Korcsolyázó Szövetség) at the Vasas Jégcentrum in Budapest, Hungary. The competition debuted in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The Budapest Trophy has been an Challenger Series event four times during its history as of 2025. Medals are awarded in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance at the senior and junior levels, although each discipline may not necessarily be held every year, and when the event is part of the Challenger Series, skaters earn ISU World Standing points based on their results.

History

The ISU Challenger Series was introduced in 2014. It is a series of international figure skating competitions sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU) and organized by ISU member nations. The objective is to ensure consistent organization and structure within a series of international competitions linked together, providing opportunities for senior-level skaters to compete at the international level and also earn ISU World Standing points.^[1] When an event is held as part of the Challenger Series, it must host at least three of the four disciplines (men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance) and representatives from at least ten different ISU member nations. The minimum number of entrants required for each discipline is eight skaters each in men's singles and women's singles, five teams in pair skating, and six teams in ice dance. Each ISU member nation is eligible to enter up to three skaters or teams per discipline in each competition, although the Hungarian National Skating Federation may enter an unlimited number of entrants in their own event.^[2]

The inaugural edition of the Budapest Trophy was intended to be the sixth event of the 2020–21 Challenger Series, however all but two of the events were ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic: the 2020 Nebelhorn Trophy and the 2020 Budapest Trophy. On 13 July, the ISU announced that the remaining Challenger Series events would be treated as separate individual competitions rather than part of a series; as a result, no Challenger Series ranking would be determined and no prize money distributed at the end of the series, although skaters could still earn Challenger Series points to apply toward their world rankings.^[3] However, the ISU later revised their decision on 3 August, announcing that world ranking points would not be awarded due to the limited nature of the competitions.^[4] On 1 October, the Hungarian National Skating Federation released a statement detailing the Hungarian government's COVID-19 regulations for competitors seeking to gain entry to Hungary.^[5] The 2020 Budapest Trophy was held from 15 to 17 October at the Vasas Jégcentrum. Only 300 spectators were allowed into the arena each day, with temperatures taken prior to admittance and strict requirements for the wearing of masks.^[6] Daniel Grassl of Italy won the men's event, Loena Hendrickx of Belgium won the women's event, and Oleksandra Nazarova and Maksym Nikitin of Ukraine won the ice dance event.^[7]

The Budapest Trophy has been held every year since, although the 2021 and 2025 editions were not part of the Challenger Series.^[8] The 2026 Budapest Trophy is scheduled to be held from 15 to 18 October at the Vasas Jégcentrum in Budapest.^[9]

Senior medalists

Ekaterina Kurakova at the 2024 World Championships

Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha at the 2025 World Championships

The 2025 Budapest Trophy champions (from left to right): Ekaterina Kurakova of Poland (women's singles); and Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha of Canada (ice dance)
Not pictured: Landry Le May of France (men's singles)

CS: Challenger Series event

Men's singles

Men's event medalists
Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Ref.
2020 CS	Daniel Grassl	Burak Demirboğa	Aleksandr Selevko	^[7]
2021	Matteo Rizzo	Dmitri Aliev	Alexander Samarin	^[10]
2022 CS	Matteo Rizzo	Lukas Britschgi	Nikolaj Memola	^[11]
2023 CS	Nikolaj Memola		Tomoki Hiwatashi	^[12]
2024 CS	Matteo Rizzo		Nikita Starostin	^[13]
2025	Landry Le May	Georgii Pavlov	Arthur Wolfgang Mai	^[14]

Women's singles

Women's event medalists
Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Ref.
2020 CS	Loena Hendrickx	Eva-Lotta Kiibus	Alexandra Feigin	^[7]
2021	Maya Khromykh	Anna Shcherbakova	Sofia Samodurova	^[10]
2022 CS	Ava Marie Ziegler	Kimmy Repond	Niina Petrõkina	^[11]
2023 CS	Bradie Tennell	Léa Serna	Clare Seo	^[12]
2024 CS	Alysa Liu	Kimmy Repond	Lorine Schild	^[13]
2025	Ekaterina Kurakova	Anastasia Gracheva	Mia Risa Gomez	^[14]

Pairs

Pairs event medalists
Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Ref.
2020	No pairs competition			^[7]
2021	Karina Akopova Nikita Rakhmanin	Anastasiia Metelkina Daniil Parkman	Ioulia Chtchetinina Márk Magyar	^[10]
2022	No pairs competition			^[11]
2023	Minerva Fabienne Hase Nikita Volodin	Maria Pavlova Alexei Sviatchenko	Daria Danilova Michel Tsiba	^[12]
2024–25	No pairs competitions

Ice dance

Ice dance event medalists
Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Ref.
2020 CS	Oleksandra Nazarova Maksym Nikitin	Katharina Müller Tim Dieck	Sasha Fear George Waddell	^[7]
2021	Tina Garabedian Simon Proulx-Sénécal	Allison Reed Saulius Ambrulevičius	Elizaveta Shanaeva Devid Naryzhnyy	^[10]
2022 CS	Marjorie Lajoie Zachary Lagha	Evgeniia Lopareva Geoffrey Brissaud	Katarina Wolfkostin Jeffrey Chen	^[11]
2023 CS	Diana Davis Gleb Smolkin	Marie-Jade Lauriault Romain Le Gac	Loïcia Demougeot Théo le Mercier	^[12]
2024 CS	Christina Carreira Anthony Ponomarenko	Emily Bratti Ian Somerville	Juulia Turkkila Matthias Versluis	^[13]
2025	Marjorie Lajoie Zachary Lagha	Mariia Ignateva Danijil Szemko	Giulia Isabella Paolino Andrea Tuba	^[14]