The first of four days of competition features the women's short programme where the spotlight seems certain to fall on 15-year-old Isabeau Levito who was world junior champion in 2022. 

She won the United States national title for the first time last month and her best score of the season so far is 215.74.

The teenager is expected to face a stiff challenge from South Korea’s Ye-Lim Kim who won bronze at the 2022 Four Continents in Tallinn last year and also took bronze at the World University Games last month.

Kim's best score of the season is 213.97.

Much is also expected of Rinka Wanatabe of Japan, an ISU Grand Prix finalist with a top score of 213.14.

In the men's competition, China's Boyang Jin returns to competition after missing the ISU Grand Prix Series.

Boyang, who won successive bronze medals at the World Championships in 2016 and 2017, had experienced pain whilst doing spins and jumps last October and had withdrawn from the ISU Grand Prix series on the advice of coaches.

He is expected to skate to an arrangement of Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, a tune well known in football stadiums around the world.

Jun-Hwan Cha of South Korea was the 2022 Four Continents champion and has twice won bronze medals at the ISU Grand Prix. 

His best score of the season is 264.05 points. 

Japan's Kao Miura appears to be in slightly better form after two silver medals in the Grand Prix and a season’s best of 273.19. 

Canada's Keegan Messing is set for his farewell appearance at the age of 31, whilst a career at senior level is only just beginning for 2022 world junior silver medallist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan. 

In the pairs, Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara have a season's best score of 216.16 and won the ISU Grand Prix Final in Turin back in December.

They won bronze at the Beijing Olympics and silver at the World Championships in 2022.

The duo go into action for the first time on Friday and victory here might be an important confidence booster before the World Championships on home ice in Saitama next month.

Last year's Four Continents silver medallists Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe of the United States will have similar ambitions in front of a home crowd this weekend.

The ice dance competition also begins on Friday.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates won Olympic team silver with the United States in Beijing.

They added World Championships bronze in Montpellier last year to the silver and bronze they had previously won.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, they won the Four Continents in successive years and have a season's best of 211.94 points.

Their biggest threat in Colorado may well come from Canadian ice dancers Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Sorensen who beat them at the NHK Trophy in Sapporo last November with their season’s best being 210.41.

All three medal-winning couples from the 2022 Four Continents are expected to dance on Friday.

Gold medallists Caroline Green and Michael Parsons from the US are set to be joined by last year's runners-up Kana Muramoto and Daisuke Takahashi from Japan and bronze medal winning Americans Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko.

Competition continues over the weekend with pairs and men's free skating and concludes with free dance and an exhibition on Sunday.