Today at Tatsumi is official practice and the officials’ meetings. Tomorrow, 4 September, 15:15 Tokyo time, the shorts: men and women on the same day. The Kinoshita Group Cup is the second 2026/27 Challenger after Cranberry Cup. It is not Grand Prix. It is world-standing points and the first judged marks of the season on Japanese home ice. Kagiyama is not on the start list. Sakamoto is not either. The home load sits on other names.
Who goes in the short
The Japanese men: Shun Sato (Olympic bronze at Milan-Cortina), Kao Miura, Rio Nakata. Sota Yamamoto withdrew on 31 August. Among the neutrals, Petr Gumennik and Evgeni Semenenko; Mark Kondratiuk was withdrawn on 2 September, Vladislav Dikidzhi in. South Korea’s Hyungyeom Kim and Minkyu Seo, American Jacob Sanchez, Mexico’s Donovan Carrillo. The women: Mao Shimada, Ami Nakai, Yuna Aoki. Mone Chiba withdrew on 1 September. In the same warm-up, Alexandra Ignatova — Trusova by her former name — with a Lara short and a Stranger Things free. For a Japanese room that is not a nostalgia slot. It is a short program you have to sit through.
Pairs and ice dance from Saturday. The Nagaoka/Moriguchi pair withdrew in August. The Japanese dance field is wider: Yoshida/Morita, Kihira/Nishiyama. Men’s free is the evening of 5 September; the women close the event on the 6th. Three dense days, not a week of split disciplines.
Why this start matters to the series
Norwood already printed numbers: Selevko 246.15, Kim Yu-seong 202.70. Tokyo asks whether those hold when Sato and Shimada are in the protocol. A Challenger does not hand out Olympic quotas. It puts TES on paper before Angers and Nebelhorn. Anyone who leaves tomorrow with a short below their summer control gets three weeks to fix it before Lombardia. Anyone who leaves with a plus gets a calmer September. Different ice, different panel. At 15:15 tomorrow it stops being a preview.
