Short program

The short program of the men and women's individual competition must be no longer than 2 minutes and 50 seconds and contain eight compulsory elements, including jump combinations and spins, executed in a sequence chosen by the athlete.

The skater selects an instrumental piece of music and may perform the compulsory moves in any order within a two-minute, 40-second time limit. Any mistake in the compulsory elements of the short program incurs a penalty.

The score obtained determines the partial standings. The 24 highest-scoring skaters in the short program go on to the free skating stage. Their points are then added to score they obtain in the free skating to calculate the total scores and the final results.

Free program

The free skating lasts 4 minutes and 30 seconds for men, 4 minutes for women. Music, themes and costumes are chosen by the athletes, even though there are limits: for example, skaters must use instrumental music with no singing. For this competition phase there are no compulsory elements, but guidelines are given for the construction of the ideal program. Judges assess the technical difficulty of the performance, variety, precision, security of movement and speed.