Olympics Milano Cortina
Last Sunday, seven American figure skaters stood atop a podium in Cortina, Italy, bowing their heads one by one to accept the single most coveted piece of hardware in the sport of figure skating: an Olympic gold medal. As predicted, Team USA gracefully nabbed the top spot in the cross-discipline team event—an event only added to the Olympic Games in 2014, signifying a rare bid for unity in a sport historically defined by cutthroat individualism.
The achievement—monumental on its own—shines even brighter in the wake of the scandal-ridden Beijing Olympics, where a Russian athlete in the ladies division tested positive for a banned heart medication just days after Russia scored the team gold. Team USA, which had finished second, was retroactively awarded gold in 2024, finally righting a wrong that had dishearteningly compromised the integrity of the sport.
Since then, a historic comeback story has been unfolding. Across all four disciplines—men, women’s pairs, and ice dance—Team USA has been dominating international figure skating in a way we haven’t seen since the early 2000s. To put it in perspective, Alysa Liu became the first female figure skater to win a World Championship since 2006 last March. A full two decades. That is not something to take lightly.
Needless to say, this is almost certainly going to be a historic Olympic Games for Team USA—and the resounding team gold is just the beginning. Over the next two weeks, the coveted individual medals will be awarded in all four disciplines, with a bevy of American athletes in striking position for the podium. Could Team USA complete this comeback tale with five medal finishes?
As a former competitive figure skater, I’ve been watching this story unfold for nearly my entire life—from the days I looped reruns of the 2006 Olympics on VHS in my childhood bedroom, the last year an American female graced the podium. But for those who are new fans to the sport, I’ve broken down all the basics to catch you up to speed. From gold-medal favorites to scoring literacy to insider details, consider this your official Olympic figure skating cheat sheet.
Who to Watch (and When)
If you’re looking to catch just a small snapshot of each event, there are a American few athletes who can’t be missed. Here are the key podium hopefuls in each division.
Ice Dance
Madison Chock and Evan Bates
It’s a deeply satisfying love story—from skating partners to life partners to husband and wife. The married couple and Olympic gold hopefuls will vie for a finish atop the podium Feb. 10, in what will be their fourth—and likely final—Olympics Games. Their stiffest competition comes from French duo Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry, who finished less than a point ahead of them in the rhythm dance Feb. 9. In the world of ice dance, that margin is essentially a tie, meaning the high-stakes free dance is truly anyone’s game. Tune in Feb. 11 at 12:30 p.m. (free dance) to watch the drama unfold.
Olympics
Men
Ilia Malinin
The 21-year-old phenom affectionately known as the “Quad God” has been virtually undefeated since late 2023, capturing three Grand Prix Final titles and two World Championships en route to the 2026 Olympics. Earning gold on Feb. 13 feels less like a question and more like destiny.
Make sure to keep your eyes out for the inexplicably difficult maneuver that helped earn him his nickname—the quad axel. A skill long deemed “impossible,” and often compared to breaking the four-minute mile, the quad axel takes off forward and rotates four and a half revolutions in the air before landing backward on one foot. The jump has never been successfully landed at the Olympic Games—setting Malinin up for a truly historic feat. And the best part is, he will likely make it look easy. Tune in to witness this historic run for gold at 12 p.m. on Feb. 13 (free skate).
Olympics Milano Cortina
Pairs
Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea
Pairs is the only discipline where Team USA is not in contention for gold. In fact, the United States has never won an Olympic gold in pairs skating, and has only finished on the podium four times: 1960, 1964, 1984, and 1988. That makes a podium finish alone a historic achievement.
Unfortunately, current U.S. champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov were deemed ineligible to compete due to citizenship issues. Their absence will make a podium finish a significant challenge, but U.S. silver medalists Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea showed gritty resolve in the team event, earning a season’s best to finish fourth and helping secure Team USA’s gold. Their performance proved they’re within striking distance of the podium. Will they complete a true underdog story? Find out Feb. 15 at 12:45 p.m. (short program) and Feb. 16 at 1 p.m. (free skate).
Team USA
Ladies
Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu
Arguably the most watched event at the Winter Games, the ladies event is projected to be a nail biter to the finish. Team USA has a better chance of nabbing gold than it has in two decades, with the last female gold medalist being Sarah Hughes in 2002, and the last medalist, Sasha Cohen in 2006.
Enter Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu, two phenomenal athletes more than six years apart in age. Together, they represent opposite ends of the sport’s spectrum—Liu as the youngest American woman to ever win a national title, and Glenn as the oldest American woman to ever compete at an Olympic Games. Both are strong podium favorites—but who will rise to the top?
Many people point to Liu; the reigning World Champion and the first American woman claim the title since 2006. But Glenn, the current U.S. champion and reigning Grand Prix Final champion, has one key advantage: the triple axel. One of the most difficult elements ever landed by a female in international competition, its base value more than doubles that of the standard double axel, giving Glenn a lofty cushion—assuming she lands it successfully. If she does, she will be in rare company. Only six women have ever successfully landed a triple axel at the Olympic Games, making Glenn’s run for gold historic in more ways than one.
But, of course, the enduring allure of figure skating is its unpredictability. It’s often less about who is the best and more about who has the best day. Tune in at 11:45 a.m. on Feb. 17 (short program) and 12 p.m. on Feb. 29 (free skate) to see who that will be.
Team USA
Scoring 101
If decoding figure skating’s scoring system feels a bit like learning a foreign language, you are not alone. Spectators are often puzzled when an athlete delivers what appears to be a flawless performance, only to land mid-pack. There is usually a reason. While scores do have an element of subjectivity to them, they are grounded in a highly structured system of point values and penalties. Here is a quick breakdown of the International Judging System (IJS) to help you grasp the basics.
Short and long
Each discipline includes two main events: a short program and a free skate, or, in ice dance, a rhythm dance and a free dance. The scores of these two events are combined to determine the final standings. Unlike gymnastics, where medals are awarded for each apparatus, there are no medals granted for individual performances. For example, if a skater were to win the short program but fall to fifth place in the free skate, they would still leave without a medal. This tends to put a lot of pressure on the short program or rhythm dance, where the significantly smaller element count leaves little room for mistakes. It’s often said that, although you can’t win a competition with the short program alone, you can most certainly lose it.
Technical elements
The IJS system judges each event based on two main merits—technical elements and program components. The technical score tracks the base value of each element—jumps, spins, step sequences, lifts, etc.—and then adds or subtracts points based on how well the element is performed. This adjustment, known as Grade of Execution (GOE), ranges from –5 to +5 and is proportional to the element’s base value. A fall, however, incurs a mandatory –1-point deduction, making it the costliest error.
The final technical elements score is a largely objective combination of base values and GOE. If you’re watching NBC, you’ll often see this score tracked throughout the performance in a small box at the top-left of the screen. Keep in mind that this score might still change after the performance due to slow-motion reviews by judges. Sometimes, elements that look perfect to the naked eye are, in reality, far from it. For example, a judge might review a securely landed jump to find that it was underrotated, meaning that a portion of the final rotation was completed on the ice rather than in the air.
Team USA
Program components
The program components score represents the artistic side of the sport, and judges each performance based on three main criteria: composition, presentation, and skating skills. Here is a quick breakdown of how U.S. Figure Skating defines each criteria:
“Composition: The intentional, developed and/or original arrangement of the repertoire of all types of movements into a meaningful whole according to the principles of proportion, unity, space, pattern, and musical structure.
Presentation: The demonstration of engagement, commitment, and involvement based on an understanding of the music and composition.”
Skating Skills: The ability of the skater to execute the skating repertoire of steps, turns, and skating movement, with blade and body control.”
Separate from raw athletic prowess, this score evaluates the artist inside each athlete, considering everything from a skater’s costume, music, and choreography to their speed, musical interpretation, and body and blade control. You may find that one specific athlete/couple has an innate ability to move you, transcending sport to evoke real, raw emotion from the audience. They are likely to earn a higher program component score.
But of course, this is the more subjective side of the score, and tends to be a point of frustration among athletes. Without concrete metrics, disputes arise—especially when elite skaters are neck and neck technically. In the past, judges have been accused of intentionally boosting the program components score to crown one pre-ordained skater of their choice. Just read up on the ladies event at the 2014 Olympics, an enduring controversy in the sport’s infamously controversy-ridden history.
Team USA
Fast Facts
- Ilia Malinin plans to perform a backflip in his short program, a maneuver that was formerly banned by the International Skating Union for more than 50 years. That ban was only lifted in 2024, and Malinin was quick to jump on it. Keep in mind that the skill has no actual point value, and is rather, a wildly difficult choreographic choice.
- Amber Glenn is the first openly queer female figure skater to represent the United States at the Olympics. In a sport long governed by rigid aesthetics, strict dress codes, and a reverence for traditional femininity, her visibility marks a historic change of the tides.
- Alysa Liu briefly retired at age 16 after placing sixth at the 2022 Beijing Games, in hopes of pursuing “a more normal life.” She returned to the ice in 2024 with renewed clarity, aiming to protect her mental health and self-worth amid the often-relentless pressures of elite skating.
- Maxim Naumov, who will represent Team USA in the men’s division, endured the tragic loss of both of his parents in the January 2025 plane crash, where an American Airlines jet collided with a military helicopter mid-air in Washington D.C. His parents were world champions in pairs figure skating in 1994, and had always dreamt of Naumov gracing the Olympic stage. The skate is sure to be an emotional one.
- This year’s ice dance event is charged with off-ice drama, mostly due to the ongoing controversy surrounding French team Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, who currently sit in first place after the rhythm dance. Detailed in the Netflix documentary “Glitter & Gold,” the shady allegations and questionable motives that follow the team make their neck-and-neck race with Chock and Bates all the more nail-biting, with some fans seeing it less as an athletic rivalry and more as a battle of morality.
- After the Russian doping scandal at the 2022 Olympics, the minimum age requirement for Olympic participation was raised to 17. This became a significant game changer in the women’s event, which was previously dominated by young teenagers—in fact, from 1994 through 2022, only two women’s champions were over the age of 17, with most winners as young as 15 or 16.
- Despite having a long podium drought in both ladies and pairs, the United States still leads the all-time Olympic medal count in figure skating, with 17 gold medals and 54 total medals.
Team USA
