At the 2012 World Championships in Nice France, Kavaguti/Smirnov were skating well during their short program until a bad fall at the end of a lift put them in 11th place with a score of 59.59. This was 12 weeks to the day after Smirnov's surgery. During their free program, an aborted lift received no points and the couple earned a score of 122.83 and earned 4th place in the free skate. With the errors of the two lifts in both programs they were unable to medal and earned a combined total of 182.42 and were in 7th place, 7.28 points away from a medal.