Some thoughts from a totally normal, definitely not shocking in any way Winter Olympics
See what had happened was...
A good reminder, as Joyce Rubin likes to say: “Ice is slippery.”
This, of course, can lead to unexpected results in the figure skating event at the Winter Olympics.
Now that we’re halfway through the individual events — plus done with the Team Event, which I wrote about last week — it’s a good time to look back at what we’ve seen so far, from the uplifting to the disappointing to the utterly shocking, plus look ahead at the two remaining events.
Piper and Paul Podiumed
I don’t know if you can technically make a verb out of the word “podium” but I just did, and I’m a professional crafter of words, so there!
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier finished third in the ice dance event, earning their first Olympic medal after 15 years of partnering together. It was an emotional journey for the duo, which was featured in the Netflix documentary Glitter & Gold. Their “Vincet” free dance was easily the highlight of that day’s skating, at least for me, and I thought it should have been the highest scored performance in the segment.
And thankfully that’s the only thing of note that happened in the ice dance event, so let’s move on to men’s singles…
Oh, right… more ice dance
Fine, let’s do this. By now you know that Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who have also been skating together for 15 years, did join Piper & Paul by winning their first individual medal at the Olympics (they already had golds from the team event in both 2022 and 2026), but that medal was not gold. Instead the French team, which just got together last season, took the top spot on the podium, but not without controversy.
I don’t want to get into all the details of the scoring controversy (for that, I recommend checking out that link above from my ESPN colleague D’Arcy Maine, who is in Milan reporting on all the skating), nor do I want to rehash all the reasons why it’s near-impossible to root for the French gold medalists. But even days after the event has passed, I keep coming back to this one thought: ice dance scoring remains all but impenetrable for the average viewer. Even after watching countless hours of skating this season, I’m nowhere near a scoring expert. I couldn’t explain to you why the French team scored higher than Madi and Evan on the elements they both executed cleanly (at least not without making a snarky comment about the French judge). But what any viewer could see is that the French team made visible mistakes in their program — yes, mistakes, plural — and didn’t seem to have their score affected by it. And for the average viewer who only tunes in once every four years, that’s hard to reconcile.
There have been some rumblings about a review of the scoring process, but barring a shocking reveal of under-the-table shenanigans (not unprecedented, it should be noted), the result isn’t going to change. Maybe how the ISU scores ice dance will change in the future, but I’m not sure that’s going to make it easier for the average viewer to understand what’s happening on the ice and how it’s translating to the numbers that magically appear on the upper left of the screen.
Ilia Malinin won gold as expected didn’t even make the podium?!
As a reminder, here’s what I wrote in my post-team event post, under the heading “Ilia Malinin is NOT a machine”:
So does this mean Malinin is in danger of not winning gold in the individual event? He seemed like as much of a lock as there had ever been, but people said the same thing about Nathan Chen in 2018, and that didn’t work out.
Malinin was first after the short program and nailed his first quad jump in his free skate. Then it all fell apart. He popped his quad axel, landing only a single, and it went downhill from there. When all was said and done, he’d finished 15th in the free skate and eighth overall. Afterwards he told the media that his first thought was, “I blew it.”
Watching his skate, the first thing that came to mind for me was LeBron James in the 2011 NBA Finals (here’s where I remind you that my day job is covering the NBA). James and the Miami Heat cruised through the Eastern Conference playoffs (just as Malinin had cruised through the Grand Prix series) and won Game 1 of the Finals (just as Malinin had the lead in the short program). They had a shocking collapse in Game 2, but bounced back to win Game 3 and it seemed all was right in the basketball world. Then it seems as if James forgot how to play basketball. He had quite possibly the worst three-game stretch of his career at the worst possible time, and Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs were NBA champions.
(Here’s where I pause to say Dirk and the Mavs deserve massive amounts of credit for how they played in that series. They didn’t win just because LeBron failed. They earned their victory, just like Mikahil Shaidorov earned his gold medal.)
Now here’s what’s interesting to me: Malinin said in the Kiss & Cry after his awful free skate that USFS should have sent him to the Olympics in 2022. He’d finished second at nationals but was bypassed for an Olympic spot. Had he gone in 2022, then Milan would not have been his first Olympic experience.
However, the 2011 Finals weren’t James’s first Finals experience. He’d been before, in 2007 when he and the Cleveland Cavaliers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs. But 2011 was the first time he’d reached the Finals and was expected to win. And he crumbled under those expectations, just as Malinin crumbled under the expectations of gold in 2026. So we can’t know for sure that things would’ve been different this year if Malinin had gone in 2022.
What we also can’t know is how Malinin will respond to this. Unlike James, he doesn’t get to come back next year and try again. James’s Heat responded to their loss to the Mavericks by winning the next two NBA titles, with James winning Finals MVP both times. Malinin will have World Championships (potentially as soon as March) and Grand Prix events, but he doesn’t get another shot at the Olympics until 2030. A lot can change in four years; let’s hope for his sake they change for the better.
Deanna is back! For the first time!
Now looking ahead to the pairs event (which is starting in mere minutes! That’s what I get for dragging my feet on writing this!), the storyline I’m most excited about is the return of Deanna Stellato-Dudek. It’s weird to call it a “return” because this is actually her first Olympics experience at age 42. But she’s returning from an injury suffered just before leaving for Milan, which forced her and partner Maxime Deschamps to miss the team event.
Now, all parties involved are being fairly vague about exactly what her injury was, which is completely fair. This isn’t the NFL with its strict injury reporting rules. But that has led to rampant speculation that Stellato-Dudek suffered a concussion, speculation that only ramped up when they announced they were removing the assisted backflip they’d debuted this season from their short program.
The 2024 World Champions remain medal contenders in Milan, though it’ll be interesting to see how they perform with a truncated practice schedule and with Stellato-Dudek on the mend. I’ll be rooting for them, because Stellato-Dudek’s story is so incredible. I highly recommend checking out the piece from former U.S. pairs skater and author Jocelyn Jane Cox on Substack to learn more about her journey from singles skater to retirement to pair skating (16 years later!) to the Olympics.
A disappointing trip to Italy for Team USA?
When the U.S. Figure Skating contingent arrived in Milan, the possibility of leaving with four gold medals seemed within reach. After winning gold in the team event, the hopes for that increased.
But now a week later, Team USA has had to settle for silver in ice dance and wasn’t even on the podium in men’s singles. Pairs starts today, the one event in which the U.S. did not expect to medal in (though who knows if things would’ve been different if Alisa Efimova had gotten her citizenship). Then next up is women’s singles, where the U.S. has multiple contenders, but no guarantees — though if we’ve learned anything from the men’s event, nothing is guaranteed in this sport.
After winning gold in three of the four disciplines at the world championships in Boston last March, coming away from Milan with only one gold medal would have to be looked at as a disappointment. However, I hope that USFS isn’t putting any added pressure on the Blade Angels to deliver a gold medal in the women’s event, which would be the first for Team USA since not-podcaster Sarah Hughes in 2002.
Kaori Sakamoto took first place in both segments of the team event, establishing the 2022 bronze medalist as the favorite this year, but I still have high hopes for both Alysa Liu and Amber Glenn (and don’t count out Isabeau Levito).
Of course, now that I’ve written all this, watch Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea somehow win gold in pairs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Some non-Olympic ice things
With no Olympic skating Saturday, I drove up to Boston to watch the Boston Adult Classic in person. As a (profoundly terrible) adult skater myself, I have an appreciation for adult skaters, and the event was so much fun. Plus I got to meet a bunch of skaters with whom I’d connected on Instagram, and it was a blast talking about skating with them.
Next weekend I have two non-competitive skating events I’m attending. First up is Disney On Ice: Jump In! in Boston on Saturday, then Wizard Of Oz On Ice in New Jersey on Sunday. I’ve never seen the latter (I’ve seen Jump In probably way too many times this season) so I’m excited for that one.
I should probably do a longer post about this one, and not have buried it at the bottom of this post, but I officially have a literary agent for The Ice Between Us, my sapphic figure skating romance novel. (Fun tidbit: something new gold medalist Mikhail Shaidorov had previously done on the ice actually inspired something in the novel). Plus I’m hard at work on the first draft of Book 2 of the Seasons On Ice series, as well as a romance novel set in the competitive skating world that isn’t directly tied to Seasons On Ice but is set in the same fictional universe. Hopefully I’ll have more good author news to share at some point in the near future.
Thank you, Adam! And thanks for the information about LeBron James. Somehow I’ve never thought about figure skating in terms of basketball (even with Terry Gannon there).
I am gutted now for Deanna.
Ok, I'm going to put this first: Congrats on the agent!!
Second, thanks for the shoutout!
Third, I'm doing some deep breathing exercises over here waiting for Deanna/Maxime and Ellie/Danny to skate!
4. I'm glad that Deanna removed the backflip - otherwise I would have maybe had a heart attack. (I of course am wondering if this is what she got hurt on...but who knows...I understand why they are keeping it under wraps)