The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion. The 1949 championships took place from February 16 to 18 in Paris, France. At the men´s event, the favorite, Dick Button won. At the women´s event, however, the favorite, Eva Pawlik of Austria, who had been the Olympic runner-up behind Barbara Ann Scott one year before and who had just won the European title in 1949, dropped out because of a broken boot heel just before the free program. So the European Vice-Champion, Alena Vrzáňová of Czechoslovakia, could seize her chance to win. She became the first woman to perform a double lutz.