South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito back on the ice at the world championships in Boston

South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito will be back on competitive ice this week at the World Figure Skating Championships in Boston after missing three months of training and a good chunk of the season because of a foot injury.

This came as a surprise to many on social media, who thought the team should be made up of the top three finishers at the U.S. Championships, which were held in January in Wichita, Kan.

But Nationals are not the qualifying competition for Worlds or the Olympics the way they are in some sports. U.S. Figure Skating takes several criteria into account when selecting the team for Worlds. The top five athletes based on an accounting of placements at several previous competitions are taken into account, including events from the current season and the previous season’s results.

Levito, 18, who lives in Mount Holly and trains in Mount Laurel, had a leg up because she was the 2024 world silver medalist.

» READ MORE: Competitors are not always rivals. Just ask the top American women’s figure skaters, Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn.

Amber Glenn, who won a second U.S. championship in Wichita in Levito’s absence, was the other shoo-in. Glenn also won all competitions in which she skated this year, including the Grand Prix Final ahead of three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto.

Glenn will join Levito on the U.S. team, along with national silver medalist, 2022 Olympian, and 2022 world bronze medalist Alysa Liu.

That means all three women on the world team are former U.S. champions. Levito won in 2023; Liu won in 2019 and 2020.

After years of a less-competitive women’s program, the United States is looking like a powerhouse again.

The first alternate, Sarah Everhardt, was the U.S. bronze medalist, while the second alternate, Bradie Tennell, placed fourth in Wichita, which is the pewter medal in U.S. figure skating. Tennell also is a two-time national champion and 2018 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event.

Still, Levito’s placement on the team was not automatic. She had to prove to U.S. Figure Skating that she was healthy and competition-ready. (Jason Brown had to prove the same things after he missed the U.S. Championships because of equipment problems that affected his training time.)

Levito was cleared to compete after she placed second at the Road to 26 competition in Milan, Italy, where next year’s Winter Olympics will be held. She said afterward that the long program was only the second she had skated since recovering from her injury. Milan is also where her mother comes from, and her grandmother and cousins still live there. Levito also was in Milan to do Olympics promotion for the Today show.

» READ MORE: South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito earns silver medal at the 2024 World Figure Skating Championships

Her previous competition was Skate America in October in Texas, where she placed third. This also figured in the actuarial formula to earn her the spot.

The 2025 world championships are particularly important because this is where countries qualify numbers of skaters for the 2026 Winter Olympics (as well as the 2026 Worlds). The placements of the top two competitors at Worlds must add up to no higher than 13 to earn the maximum three spots at the next year’s Olympics or Worlds in any discipline (women, men, pairs, or ice dance).

This year’s team for Worlds earned those three spots in two ways: Levito placed second, and Glenn was 11th at the 2024 Worlds. But if a skater places first or second, his or her country automatically gets three spots the following year.

With Levito, Glenn, and Liu competing in Boston, the American women have a good chance of earning three spots for the Winter Olympics.

If Levito’s year was on again off again, the 2023-24 year also was filled with ups and downs. At the 2024 U.S. championships in Columbus, Ohio, she was looking to defend her national title. Her short program was enough to have her sitting in first place. But she fell three times in her free skate and wound up in third.

And yet she bounced back, to her surprise as much as anyone’s, with magical performances at the 2024 Worlds in Montreal, winning the silver medal to Sakamoto’s gold.

Can magic strike again this year? She had less time to train, but the pressure also is lower. The most important thing is that she shows she will be ready for the Olympics next year.

Women’s short program — 3 p.m. Wednesday on USA or Peacock

Women’s free skate — 8 p.m. Friday on NBC or Peacock

There will also be a recap show featuring all Worlds events at 3 p.m. April 13 on NBC