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For the first time in the history of the World Figure Skating Championships, no European country won a title in any of the four disciplines as three of the gold medals went to Asian countries and the fourth went to Canada. This feat came close seven years ago in Washington, D.C., when Evgeni Plushenko was the only European skater to win the gold. And while the United States and Canada have been figure skating powerhouses for over half a century, the past two decades have seen the emergence of Asian countries into the forefront, led by skaters from Japan and China. 

Related: Photos from the exhibition gala

In total, Asian and North American countries took seven of the 12 medals, with Europe taking the rest. And similar to the Vancouver Olympics, no country won more than two medals, with skaters from ten different countries taking home hardware from Torino. Seven of the 12 medalists from Vancouver came to Torino, and all seven ended up with medals.

ICE DANCE
The compulsory dance kicked off the competition, with Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir from Canada taking the lead right away over Olympic silver medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White from the United States. The fight for the gold in dance was close all the way through – the Canadians took both the compulsory dance and the original dance by just about a point, and the Americans won the free dance by half a point. In the end, Virtue and Moir edged out Davis and White for the gold, with home crowd favorites Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali taking the bronze, their first World medal.

PAIRS
In the pairs' event, it was Olympic silver medalists Qing Pang and Jian Tong who won their second World title, dethroning reigning World champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, who took the silver after an eventful season. Russia's Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov earned their second consecutive bronze medal on the heels of a disappointing Olympic free skate that took them out of the medals.

MEN
The sole Olympic men's medalist to come to Torino, Japan's Daisuke Takahashi, showed his mettle with a quad flip attempt in the free skate. Though the flip was downgraded, he was still heads above the rest, adding his first World title to his Olympic bronze. Canada's Patrick Chan and France's Brian Joubert repeated their silver and bronze medal efforts from last year. For Joubert, his bronze was a much needed confidence boost after his disastrous 16th-place finish in Vancouver.

LADIES
The most unexpected results came in the ladies' competition, in which inconsistency was the name of the game. Olympic silver medalist Mao Asada bested rival and Olympic champion Yu-Na Kim to win her second World title. Though Asada was only credited for one of her three triple axels, Kim had the tougher time of the two, finishing seventh in the short program with a number of fluke errors. Laura Lepisto took advantage of everyone's mistakes and took the bronze, the first World medal for both her and her home country.

The 2011 World Figure Skating Championships will take place next March in Tokyo, Japan. Below are the countries that qualified two or more skaters to next year's Worlds based on last week's results.

Countries qualifying two or more spots to the 2011 Worlds
LADIES – Japan (3), Canada, Finland, Italy, Russia, Sweden, United States (2 each)
MEN – Canada, Japan, United States (3 each), Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Sweden (2 each)
PAIRS – China, Russia (3 each), Canada, Germany, United States (2 each)
DANCE – Canada, United States (3 each), France, Great Britain Hungary, Israel, Italy, Russia (2 each)

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Rachael Flatt won the 2010 U.S. Women's Figure Skating Championship in Spokane. Rachael Flatt surprised everyone as attendance surged, and Spokane came out in style to celebrate all of the women at the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. This is the second time that Spokane has hosted the U.S. Figure Skating Championships (first time was in 2007) and it's time to call this one a huge success.

As reported by KHQ in Spokane, 155,496 fans showed up to watch the events of the 2010 U.S Figure Skating Championships. This surpasses the estimated 154,000 that showed up in 2007, and all of them saw a great finish to the women's competition on Saturday. With Marai Nagasu leading after the short program, and Sasha Cohen in second place, it seemed like those two women would end up representing the women's team at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

When Rachael Flatt took to the ice on Saturday night, she had already knew that she needed to put up some great numbers in the long program and she did not disappoint. In fact, when the final scores were tallied, it looks on paper like Rachael Flatt simply blew the doors off the Spokane Arena. Watching it live, it seemed like Mirai Nagasu did everything necessary to win the 2010 U.S. Women's Figure Skating Championships, but she finished almost 12 points back.

Rachael Flatt won the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a score of 200.11, followed by Mirai Nagasu in second place with a 188.78 score, and then Ashley Wagner in third with a score of 184.72. Sasha Cohen ended up in fourth place after falling, but still had a great score of 174.28 to show in her first major competition in a while.

Rachael Flatt now seems destined to do well at the 2010 Winter Olympics, with a second skater to join her from the U.S. team. The United States only has two spots in the event this year though, so it's going to be a tough choice for the committee. Spokane, Washington turned out in droves to once again see a successful women's event come off without a hitch.

2010 Women's Recap

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2010 Men's Recap