I’m watching the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, and a peach glow shimmers across my television screen. It reminds my young eyes of peering into a case at the jewelry store under the brightest lights — all Swarovski and crushed refraction. I immediately yell to my mother in the kitchen. Skating is on, and this is the costume I know she’ll want to see. She hurries to the den as the skater alights on the massive white oval and the music begins.
The sport of figure skating has changed quite a bit since I started watching with my mom. The International Judging System (IJS), created after the scoring scandal in the Pairs event of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, has implemented new rules for skaters that include specific required elements in both programs of each discipline (pairs, singles, dance). As we hurtle toward the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina, I find myself wondering how these seemingly disjointed elements can still become art, especially for once and future Olympic medal contenders.
One-foot turns
When Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skated their “Moulin Rouge” at the 2018 Olympics, the one-foot turn sequence wasn’t a required element as such, but it is now mandatory in all ice dance free dance programs. The foundation of figure skating is in the turns of the blade — rocker, counter, bracket, etc. — and ice dancers perfect the turns beyond utility to stylization. Each ankle flick is outsized and angular — think cursive instead of print. The skater uses the inside and outside edges of the blade to make loops and swirls, creating patterns. What judges want are deeply held edges. It’s not uncommon to see the leather of dancers’ boots slide on the ice as their blades strike impossible angles.
Ice dance teams live their performance. Whatever their relation: siblings, lovers, or business partners, dancers want us to believe their two halves make a whole. It’s all very Midsummer Night’s Dream — when the characters reach the edge of the proverbial woods (in this case, the ice) they act as if under a spell. This requires a level of dramatism all the way up the chain — a belief in the storyline shown not only through the blades, but the wrists, the back, the face. Engrossing dancers seem to be led along on strings.
After all, unison is a judging criterion. It’s gauche to stop performing when the skate is over. I see Madison Chock’s eyes locked to her partner, Evan Bates, the entire time he speaks to a reporter. You may remember Zachary Donohue grabbing Madison Hubbell’s hand in the 2022 Olympic “Kiss and Cry” the way a lover might; in reality, they were romantic exes. Portrayal or deception? At times, they seemed not to know. When a skater holds an inside edge, they turn in on themselves, eventually looping into ever tighter circles.
Spiral
In 2019, ice dancers Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier began filming a free dance at snowy Lake Louise, a scenic setting for outdoor skating in Alberta. Their project remains unfinished, but they are hopeful one day to complete it. Many stars have skated between these mountains — among them Carolina Costner and Ellaj Baldé — and the shots, often captured by a skating camera operator holding a gimbal — are stunning. On ponds like this, the sport began.
I can see the lake, or the sky, through the opening created by the skater’s legs in a spiral. The spiral roots one to the origin of skating unlike any other move—one blade glides on the surface as the other leg lifts and holds any manner of positions in the air. At the beginning of their 2025 “Whiter Shade of Pale” free dance, Piper and Paul hold matching spirals for a full circle at center ice as Annie Lennox sings her first notes.
This interaction within the medium of ice is fragile. The weight over the hip, then the knee, then the ankle, and distributed through the foot must reach a balance for the spiral to glide with enough speed for flying.
Ina Bauer
Any position a skater enters at speed and holds can result in a glide. The Ina Bauer, where the front leg pushes to a lunge with foot turned out and the other leg positioned behind, often with a backbend of the upper body, results in an S curve if held on alternating edges. Picture the fourth position in ballet. The best Ina Bauers run the length of the ice.
The glide is thought of as the most satisfying aspect of the sport and is the reason many skaters began in this medium. It’s also a main attraction for audiences—the hair in the wind, the sensation of no friction—it most closely mirrors takeoff. Fans often say the IJS system doesn’t allow for the beauty of the glide with so many other required elements.
Though the Ina Bauer has become a part of almost every program of his (such is the destiny of a signature move) South Korean men’s skater Junhwan Cha is so revered for his that audiences gasp as if it’s a surprise each time. It’s not the work of the blades or the unlocking spine, but the audacity to hold one pose for a few seconds — a lifetime. When he lifts his arms as if he’s levitating, it is a command for us to cheer. We do not hesitate. It’s the moment the tumbler clicks and the safe door swings open. This is Cha’s reward for the audacity to glide, for asking the crowd to come with.
Step Sequence
The media has long pitted the “athlete” against the “artist” in rivalry. Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya were such talents. Fans of Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu still seem to be quarreling over the distinction four years after the skaters have retired. In truth, no one would pursue this sport if they weren’t inclined toward both, serving jealous masters.
Who was the more artful skater, the more technically gifted? The Chen/Hanyu debate became psychological warfare, and the battleground was the step sequence. In each program, skaters must show their ability to execute difficult turns while performing to the audience. Hanyu’s step sequences were often a study in commanding presence — Yuzuru, almost a god, worked his blades through held glides with outstretched arms and perfect lines.
Chen was balletic as well, and perhaps because of that training opted for “dance breaks” in his later performances, paving the way for skaters like Ilia Malinin to create full programs set to rap. Nathan’s breaks were a funnel of energy that shook an awed crowd. Often, they included a spread eagle, performed with a back so straight and toes pointed out to an impossibility. He halted on a dime before we realized it.
Camel Spin
In a freestyle program, almost as many spins are required as jumps, and contortion is prerequisite. Medals and prizes are gendered, so are spins. Certain spin positions are performed mostly by women, with others seemingly only done in men’s programs. Women almost always perform the Biellmann. Some consider the A-frame exclusively male.
The preening and “packaging” of skaters for judging is wildly binary, as rigid as a birdcage. Peeled back, skaters reveal that gender is a no-man’s land — any and all of them flash crystals, leather, or hair dye. LGBTQIA+ members comprise large swaths of the skating community, though many would still not identify as such publicly. Alysa Liu added “they/them” to her Instagram bio in 2022, but never announced it.
Openly out Amber Glenn does cartwheels, a fist pump, and the triple axel — moves still considered quite masculine. She’s fast down the ice and her programs at turns portray her as commanding, yet feminine. She says her triple axel is “like a man’s” in technique, but really, it’s hers — different than anyone’s. All singles skaters compete a T-position camel spin in their programs. Amber also does a Biellmann.
Split Twist
Pairs skating is innately dangerous — two bodies manipulating each other in the air up to 12 feet above the ice. Even teams together for years miss each other’s hands in a lift or can’t sync the takeoffs required for side by side jumps. Due to its danger and difficulty, the split triple twist is usually executed at the beginning of a pairs program, down the ice to the right of the judging panel.
The smaller partner is thrown into the air and rotates three times while the lifting partner executes a series of moves below. Beginner teams do a single or double twist, just as singles skaters jump fewer rotations, then stack on. Widely considered soulmates on and off ice, Katia Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov practiced a quadruple twist in the 80s, and Katia said her heartbeat was measured over 200 BPM during attempts. They eventually abandoned it and won without.
Wenjing Sui and Cong Han of China, who announced a tentative comeback for 2026, but became Olympic Pairs champions in 2022, knew a technical edge was needed to overtake the Russian teams’ impeccable jumps. The quadruple twist became an inevitability for Beijing. Tell me about a faith that allows a man to throw you into the air at height, to spin rapidly without spotting the landing, to touch down on quarter inch blades. The faith of a 20-year partnership is perhaps not enough.
Axel
Just lacing up skates and holding the wall is an act of trust that acknowledges the danger of falling. One of the most feared elements is the axel jump, which takes off forward instead of backward. “But can’t I see what I’m doing while moving forward?” I thought as a kid. Commentators tell us athletes “step up” into an axel. Skaters say the axel is a plunge into blackness, a twisting leap over a cliff.
Even doing a single axel requires a move from fear to belief, and the cost is countless falls. It’s something like a writer collecting rejection slips: hundreds are needed before success. Ilia Malinin, current men’s world champion says “There are no limits for me” and perhaps this is why he is the first skater to land a quadruple axel in a competition. He has peered into the darkness and jumped toward it, pulling as much speed out as he does in.
Some fans label Malinin as cocky, but in other sports his mentality would be recognized as a prerequisite for greatness. As a famous early Nike ad said, “There is no finish line,” and Ilia, rink rat to his core, has internalized the sentiment. Ilia promises that after the 2026 Olympics, where he is widely considered the favorite, he is on to the quint, a jump he has already practiced — faith without fear, falling and opening, always opening, to become again new.