u/KindergartenVampire1

2026 Olympics; Milano Cortina, Italy

Mikhail: He is the 2026 Olympic Champion, 2025 World silver medalist, 2025 Four Continents champion, 2025 Asian Winter Games bronze medalist, a four-time Grand Prix medalist, a three-time Challenger Series medalist, and a five-time Kazakhstani national champion. At the 2026 Winter Olympics, Mikhail made history as the first figure skater from Kazakhstan to win an Olympic gold medal and became the second Kazakhstani athlete ever to win gold at a Winter Olympics following Vladimir Smirnov. Additionally, Mikhail is the first skater in history to land a triple Axel-quadruple toe loop jump combination and a triple Axel-Euler-quadruple Salchow jump combination. He greatly admires fellow Kazach skater, Denis Ten. Mikhail has publicly condemned Russian media outlets for often labelling him as a Russian athlete, saying, "It's disrespectful to me... I was born, lived, and still live in Almaty, and I spend a lot of time in Kazakhstan, in my beloved city." He is 21 years old.

Alysa: She is the 2026 Olympic champion in both the women's singles and team events, the 2025 World champion, the 2022 World bronze medalist, the 2025–26 Grand Prix Final champion, a two-time Grand Prix medalist, a four-time Challenger Series champion, and a two-time U.S. national champion. When Alysa was 13, became the youngest-ever U.S. women's national champion. The following year, she became the youngest skater to win two senior national titles. She was the first American woman to land a quadruple jump and the first American junior woman to complete a triple Axel in international competition. We all know her story, but it's still inspiring. After the 2022 Olympics, she retired for two years, only to return with a new love for the sport, and a determination to showcase her art for her own sake, not anybody else's. I cannot wait to see what else she brings to the sport. She is 20 years old.

Ryuchi: He and Riku Miura, are the 2026 Olympic pair skating champions, two-time World Champions, two-time World silver medalists, two-time Four Continents champions, two-time Grand Prix Final champions, eight-time ISU Grand Prix medalists (five golds, two silvers, one bronze), three-time ISU Challenger Series medalists (one gold, two silvers), and two-time Japanese national champions. They are also one of only few skaters to achieve a Career Golden Slam. He also previously competed with Narumi Takahashi and Miu Suzaki, representing Japan at the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics, respectively. As a singles skater, he is a two-time bronze medalist on the ISU Junior Grand Prix series and the 2010–11 Japanese Junior silver medalist. He and Riku announced their retirement after the 2026 Olympics. He is 33 years old.

Riku: With her former skating partner, Shoya Ichihashi, she competed in the final segment at three World Junior Championships. In March 2026, following their Olympic gold medal win, Miura and pair partner, Ryuichi Kihara, were awarded the Mayor's Key to the town of Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Miura/Kihara achieved a Career Golden Slam, becoming only the second Japanese skaters to do so after Yuzuru Hanyu. She and Ryuchi are very private about their personal lives. They have been asked if they are in a relationship with one another, and have stated that they are not. Regardless, they have a very deep and devoted platonic relationship. She is 24 years old.

Laurence: She first skated for Denmark with Nikolaj Sørensen, winning six ISU Challenger Series medals and representing Denmark at the World and European championships. In March 2018, Denmark released them to represent Canada after she was unable to obtain Danish citizenship to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics. When they competed for Canada she was a two-time Four Continents silver medalist, an eight-time Grand Prix medallist (including gold at the 2022 NHK Trophy), a five-time Challenger medallist (including gold at the 2019 CS Nebelhorn Trophy and 2022 CS Finlandia Trophy), and the 2023 Canadian national champion. The pair represented Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics. For France, with Guillaume Cizeron, she is the 2026 Olympic champion, the 2026 World champion, the 2026 European champion, the 2025–26 Grand Prix Final silver medalist, a two-time Grand Prix champion, and the 2026 French national champion. She is currently dating Nikolaj Sørensen, currently suspended for sexual assault charges. Despite this, Laurence and Guillaume have consistently and publicly supported Sørensen, with him even attending the Olympic ice dance event to support the team.She is 33 years old.

Guillaume: Their 2026 Olympic result sparked widespread controversy, with several media outlets expressing outrage. Many noted that the French judge, Jézabel Dabouis, scored Chock and Bates lower than any other evaluator, nearly eight points lower than Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron in the free dance segment. She was also the only judge to give Chock and Bates a score lower than 130 points and one that was over 5.20 points below the average score posted by the remaining eight judges. Additionally, it was highlighted that Cizeron made several mistakes, including a noticeable one during his twizzle sequence, while Chock and Bates were nearly perfect. He and Laurence stand staunchly in support of Nikolaj Sørensen, currently suspended for sexual assault charges. Guillaume is 31 years old.

2022 Olympics; Beijing, China

Nathan: He is the 2022 Olympic champion, a three-time World champion, the 2017 Four Continents champion, a three-time GPF champion, a ten-time Grand Prix medalist (8 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, and a six-time U.S. national champion. At the junior level, Chen is the 2015–16 Junior GPF champion, 2013–14 Junior Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, 2014 World Junior bronze medalist, and a six-time Junior Grand Prix medalist (5 gold, 1 silver). Nathan is the first skater to have successfully landed each of the five reverse take-off quadruple jumps in competition with a positive GOE. He is the current world record holder for men in the short program and combined total score. Nathan holds the highest winning percentage in modern figure skating at 73%. He currently holds the highest total scores of three major ISU competitions: the Olympics, the Four Continent Championships, and the Grand Prix Final. He graduated from Yale in May 2024 and won a Statistics and Data Science Outstanding Thesis Award for his senior project. Nathan's memoir One Jump at a Time: My Story was released in November 2022. He is 27 years old.

Anna: She is the 2022 Olympic champion, the 2021 World champion, the 2022 European champion, and a three-time Russian national champion. Anna was the first female figure skater to land a quad Lutz in senior competition and the first woman to land two quad Lutz jumps in a single program. She was also the first to land a quad flip in combination with a triple jump, as well as the first to land two quad flips in one program. She remains the only Olympic champion in women's singles to have performed quad jumps. Following the start of the 2025-2026 figure skating season, Anna Scherbakova has commentated on the Russian Grand Prix Series. Alongside Trusova, Anna is credited for ushering in the era of quad jumps in competitive women's figure skating, especially domestically. Prior to Anna's senior domestic debut, not a single quad jump was landed by any of the woman skaters at the Russian Figure Skating Championships. Since then, quad jumps have become a prominent feature in Russian women's skating. Anna has not returned to competitions since the 2022 Winter Olympics. She has appeared in shows hosted by Evgeni Plushenko, as well as Tatyana Navka. She is 22 years old

Cong: With partner Wenjing, he is the 2022 Olympic gold medalist, 2018 Olympic silver medalist, a two-time World champion, a three-time World silver medalist, the 2019–20 GPF champion, a six-time Four Continents champion, a seven-time Grand Prix gold medalist, a three-time World Junior champion, the 2009–10 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, and a three-time Chinese national champion. He and Wenjing are the first pair skate team to achieve a Super Slam. They have landed throw quadruple salchows and quadruple twists in competition. In the 2022–23 season, they decided not to compete in international competitions. Cong was later named to be the skater member of the Single & Pair Skating Technical Committee of the ISU. He also began working as a teaching assistant at Tsinghua University while pursuing a master's degree in sport coaching at Beijing Sport University. He is 33 years old.

Wenjing: In 2025, they returned to competitive skating. They made their official return to competition in late October at the 2025 Cup of China, where they won the bronze medal. Following the event, Cong shared that their competition free skate had marked only their fourth time doing a full run-through of it. Two weeks later, the team won bronze at 2025 NHK Trophy. The pair placed fifth overall at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Both skaters confirmed that this was their last performance together on the ice. Wenjing and Cong are both very private with their personal lives. She is 30 years old.

Guillaume: With Gabriella, he has broken world records 34 times, which is itself a record across all figure skating disciplines. They are the first team to have broken the 90-point barrier in the rhythm dance, 130-point barriers in the free dance, and the first team to score above the 220-point barriers in the combined total score. Two days before Gabriella's memoir was released, Guillaume announced that his lawyers had sent a formal notice to Papadakis and her publisher. He said that Papadakis' allegations against him were false and accused her of orchestrating a "smear campaign" against him. Following Guillaume's cease and desist notice, NBC Sports pulled Papadakis from doing commentary at the 2026 Winter Olympics. It said that her book created a "conflict of interest" because Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry were competing in the ice dance event.

Gabriella: With Guillaume Cizeron, she is a 2022 Olympic champion, 2018 Olympic silver medalist, a five-time World champion, a five-time consecutive European champion, the 2017 and 2019 GPF champion, and a seven-time French national champion. They have won ten gold medals on the Grand Prix series. They officially announced their retirement as team in 2024. During a podcast interview with Championnes du Monde, Gabriella said that the main reason behind her and Cizeron's decision to split was due to her values no longer aligning with that of her partner's, her coaches, and the French Federation of Ice Sports. She said that when she told her coaching team at the Ice Academy of Montreal (IAM) that she was pregnant, they were unsympathetic and told her to "deal with it and come back." She felt her only choice was to get an abortion. In 2023, Gabriella began choreographing competitive figure skating programs. In 2024, Gabriella began advocating for the inclusion of same-sex partnerships in competitive figure skating. Teaming up with Madison Hubbell, the pair decided to begin skating together professionally. The duo debuted as a team at 2025 Art on Ice. In January 2026 she released a memoir, Pour ne pas disparaître ("To Not Disappear") She is 31 years old.

2018 Olympics; Pyeongchang, South Korea

(Russia was made to enter its athletes as neutral competitors by the IOC due to evidence exposing a state-sponsored doping program and the manipulation of drug-testing samples during the 2014 Sochi Games.)

Yuzuru: He is the only skater who has landed a quadruple toe loop-triple Axel sequence in competition, doing so for the first time in 2018. Yuzuru is also the first skater to land a quadruple toe loop-Euler-triple flip combination. At the 2022 Olympics, Yuzuru made his first attempt on the quadruple Axel in an international competition. Despite falling on the jump, he received the base value of quad Axel before being reduced for under-rotation. It was the closest quad Axel attempt in a competition until Ilia Malinin. When Yuzuru began carrying a Winnie-the-Poo tissue box to competitions in 2010, his supporters and fans made it a custom to acknowledge the end of his performances by throwing Pooh bears onto the ice instead in massive quantities. Yuzuru donated the bears to disadvantaged children at local hospitals and charities surrounding the arena that hosted the event. In August 2020, it was revealed that his graduation thesis summarizes how 3D motion capture technology could be used in figure skating, and in particular its potential for use in figure skating judging. One area of research he did is recording and analyzing his movement while doing the triple Axel jump off-ice which he hopes can be used to improve the skills of athletes and judging. On August 4, 2023, Yuzuru announced his marriage to an unnamed spouse through social media. On November 17, 2023, he announced he and his spouse had divorced, citing harrassment by the press as cause for the separation. He is 31 years old.

Alina: She is the 2018 Olympic champion, the 2019 World champion, the 2018 European champion, 2017-18 GPF champion, and the 2018 Russian champion. She also won a silver medal in the 2018 team event. Earlier in her career, she won gold at the 2017 World Junior championships and at the 2016-17 Junior GPF. Alina is the youngest and second women's singles skate, to have completed a Super Slam. She is the second-youngest Olympic champion in women's skating, behind Tara Lipinski. She holds the world record score in the women's short program. She was known for back-loading her programs, which led to the ISU implementing a rule limiting the number of jumps that could receive the base value bonus, unofficially known as the "Zagitova rule". She owns an Akita dog that was gifted to her by the Japanes president after learning her parents said she could have one if she did well at the Olympics. Alina is also the owner of an impressive 554 speeding tickets and other traffic violations. She is 24 years old.

Bruno: With Aljona Savchenko, he is the 2018 Olympic and World champion, a two-time European silver medalist, and two-time German national champion. Bruno initially competed with Daria Popova for France, he became the 2014 Challenge Cup champion and 2012 French national champion. Since the ISU does not allow any pairing to compete under two flags, one partner was obliged to change country and could not compete internationally until the previous country granted a release. Aljona said that she preferred to continue competing for Germany while Bruno preferred France. In 2015, Bruno's mother announced that the FFSG had refused to release Bruno to skate for Germany. He was not allowed to compete or perform in shows until the FFSG released him. Consequently, he lived on 200 euros a month for one and a half years. He considered living in his car, but the Deutsche Eislauf-Union stepped in with financial assistance to cover his rent, food, and training expenses, and to find some furniture. On 31 August 2015, the FFSG reportedly demanded a fee of 70,000 euros to release him, but later agreed to 30,000 euros. Bruno was released to skate for Germany on 26 October 2015. He has since desribed Aljona as a tyrant, going so far as to say that if he had that time back, he would not partner with her. Bruno got married in 2019, and has two sons. He is 37 years old.

Aljona: One of the most decorated pair skaters, she is the 2018 Olympic Champion and a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, a six-time World, a four-time European champion, and a five-time GPF champion. Her skating partners have included Dmitri Boyenko, Stanislav Morozov, Robin Szolkowy, (with whom she received the first 10.0 component scores ever given by a judge under the ISU judging system) and finally, Bruno Massot(with whom she holds the world record for best free skate score and best total score). She has represented both Ukraine and Germany. In 2021, she announced that, due to having difficulties in the search of a partner, she would be focusing on coaching. In 2014, she worked with the German Red Cross on an aid project for eastern Ukraine. As of 2025, Aljona is working as a coach in Italy. She briefly coached the Knierim couple, but they left her abruptly in October 2018, right before Skate America. She was married in 2016, has since divorced, and has two daughters. She is 42 years old.

Scott: He comes from a skating family, with his mother and aunt being coaches and both of his older brothers having previously skated competitively. His cousins Sheri Moir and Cara Moir also took part in the 2007 World Synchronized Skating championship as members of Canada's team. In October 2010, the pair, and co-writer Steve Milton published a book about their career called Tessa and Scott: Our Journey from Childhood Dream to Gold.  In late 2013, they filmed their TV show, Tessa and Scott, which focuses on their training for the Olympics. The show aired in January 2014. In 2020, Virtue and Moir were inducted to the Order of Canada for their athletic excellence and for inspiring a new generation of figure skaters. Scott married his first ice dance partner, Jaclyn Mascarin, in 2022. They have two children. The announcment of their engagment came to the shock and dismay of many fans who were convinced that he and Tessa were madly in love, and in a secret relationship. He is 38 years old.

Tessa: Having skated together for over twenty years, Tessa and Scott are the longest-standing ice dance team in Canadian history. She and Scott toured with Stars on Ice in Canada and Japan in the offseason since 2010 and during their break from competition. They performed in ice shows such as Festa On Ice, Shall We Dance On Ice, and All That Skate. They also participated in Art on Ice in Switzerland and went on Gold Medal Plate auction trips multiple times. She and Moir co-produced and skated in their own ice skating show, The Thank You Canada Tour in 2018. Following on from that success, they co-produced the Rock the Rink tour in 2019. In 2015, Hillberg & Berk announced their collaboration with Tessa Virtue. In October of the same year, they launched Tessa Virtue collection of jewelry, which she helped design.Tessa married hockey player Morgan Rielly in 2023, they have one son. She is 37 years old.

2014 Olympics; Sochi, Russia

Yuzuru: He is a two-time World champion, two-time Olympic champion, six-time Japanese national champion, and the first singles skater to win four consecutive Grand Prix Finals. Yuzuru became the first skater in men's singles to complete the Super Slam, having won all major international junior and senior titles in the course of his career. He is also the only singles skater to be ranked first in the ISU World Standings for five consecutive seasons. Yuzuru broke 19 world records, the most in singles since the introduction of the ISU Judging System in 2003, and was the first skater to land a quadruple loop jump in international competition. His 2014 win was the first Olympic title for an Asian skater in the men's singles event and the second for Japan in figure skating, following Shizuka Arakawa. His first major work as a professional is the ongoing Yuzuru Hanyu Ice Story series, with its prelude event Prologue (2022) being the first solo ice show and the Repray Tour (2023–24) the first solo tour production in figure skating. His second solo show Gift (2023) was the first ice skating event to be held at Tokyo Dome, breaking the record for the largest ice show audience with 35,000 people. He remains a massively popular figure, his fans (hi, guys) like to call him "Yuzu".

Adelina: She is the 2014 Olympic gold medalist, a two-time European silver medalist, a two-time Rostelecom Cup bronze medalist, and a four-time Russian national champion. On the junior level, she is the 2012 Youth Olympic silver medalist, the 2011 Junior World champion, the 2010 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, and the 2009 Russian junior national champion. Although Russian skating officials initially intended to assign Adelina and Yulia Lipnitskaya to one program each in the team event, they decided a week beforehand that Lipnitskaya would skate both segments. Her Olympic victory was controversial due to allegations of judges' impartiality and criticisms of the scoring system. Questions over the judges, the judging system, and the anonymity of scores were also raised in the press. Over 1.7 million people signed a Change.org petition calling for an investigation into the outcome. At one point, it was attracting 100,000 new signatures every 15 minutes, with 90% of signatures coming from inside Korea. Adelina did not participate at any event, domestic or international, from 2016 onwards. In April 2017, she changed coach and training location, by hiring former Olympic men's champion Evgeni Plushenko at his skating academy, Angels of Plushenko in Moscow. But her persisting health problems prevented her from performing at any competition. In 2015, Sotnikova started up a beauty salon in Moscow. She has one son. She is 29 years old.

Maxim: With Tatiana, he is a two-time 2014 Olympic champion in the pairs and in team events, the 2013 World champion, a four-time European champion, the 2012 Grand Prix Final champion, and a three-time Russian national champion. With former partner Maria Mukhortova, Maxim is the 2008 European silver medalist, the 2007 Russian national champion, and the 2005 World Junior champion. A coach suggested he take up pair skating when he was 11, He recalled, "I said no at first because I was afraid to grab the hand of a girl, but I tried it and then I liked it." Maxim lived at the rink, sleeping in the stands or in the coaches' room, and struggled for food but told his parents he was staying in a dormitory. After about a year and a half, Maxim moved in with soldiers who had quarters under the tribune. He was given one free cafeteria meal a day and someone would occasionally bring him food. After three years, he was able to get his own apartment. Maxim is a fan of Russian hip-hop and writes music himself. He is 42 years old.

Tatiana: She initially competed for Ukraine with Petr Kharchenko in 2000–04 and with Stanislav Morozov in 2004–10. She and Morozov are four-time Ukrainian national champions. She became a Russian citizen in 2010. She and Maxim broke their own world record in the Olympic pairs skate, posting a score of 84.17 to come in first in the short program and placed first in the free skate with an overall score of 236.86 points, winning the gold medal by more than 18.18 points ahead of silver medalists. She and Maxim got married in 2015 and have two children. She is 40 years old.

Charlie: With Meryl, he is the 2014 Olympic Champion, the 2010 Olympic silver medalist, a two-time World champion, five-time Grand Prix Final champion, three-time Four Continents champion, and six-time U.S. national champion. He and Meryl continue to perform together in ice shows and Charlie has also worked on television as an ice dancing commentator. On February 23, 2017, they confirmed that they would not return to competition. In 2022, White opened the Michigan Ice Dance Academy with his wife and Greg Zuerlein in Michigan. He married fellow ice dancer Tanith Belbin in 2015, they have one son. He is 38 years old.

Meryl: She and Charlie teamed up in 1997 and they are currently the longest lasting dance team in the United States.They are the first American ice dancers to win the World and the Olympic title. At the 2006 NHK Trophy, they became the first ice dancing team to receive level fours on all their elements. They were undefeated in the 2012-2013 season, though Virtue/Moir came close a couple times. During the team event at in Sochi, she and Charlie earned 20 points in two first-place finishes for the U.S. team, which was awarded the bronze medal overall. Meryl married former figure skater Fedor Andreev in 2019. She is 39 years old.

2006 Olympics; Turin, Italy

Evgeni: He is a four-time Olympic medalist (2006 gold, 2014 team gold, 2002 & 2010 silver), a three-time World champion, a seven-time European champion, a four-time Grand Prix Final champion, and a ten-time Russian national champion. Evgeni took a break from competitive skating following the 2006 Olympic season. He has said the off-season helped him rest and recover from past knee injuries he has battled. He returned to competition in 2010. At the 2010 European Championships, He set a new world record score in the short program by scoring 91.30 points, and went on to win the event for a sixth time with a total score of 255.39 points. Evgeni was the first male skater to perform the Biellmann spin in the senior competitions. At the age of 16, He became the youngest male skater to ever receive a perfect score of 6.0. Evgeni received a total of seventy five 6.0's before the new judging system was introduced. Under the Code of Points system, he has set 13 world record scores. After retiring from competition in 2017, he opened his own skating school. He was the coach of Adelina Sotnikova, Russia's controversial 2014 Olympic champion, from April 2017 until she retired in 2020. He is married and has three sons. He is 43 years old.

Shizuka: She is the 2006 Olympic champion and the 2004 World champion. Shizuka is the first Japanese skater to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating and the second Japanese skater to win any Olympic medal in figure skating, after Midori Ito, who won silver in 1992. She was the only Japanese medalist at the 2006 Winter Olympics. In 2000, Shizuka enrolled at Waseda University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in social sciences in 2004, while still competing as a skater. She won the 2004 World Figure Skating Championships days after completing her graduation exams. Shizuka retired from competitive skating following her Olympic win and began skating professionally in ice shows and exhibitions. She also works as a skating sportscaster for Japanese television. Her trademark move is the Ina Bauer with a full backbend. Due to Shizuka's use of this move during her free skate at the 2006 Olympics, the term "Ina Bauer" became very popular in Japan. The Ina Bauer move is often referred to in Japan by Arakawa's name. She is 44 years old.

Roman: With Tatiana Navka, he is the 2006 Olympic champion, two-time World champion, three-time Grand Prix Final champion, and three-time European champion. Their coach, Natalia Linichuk dissolved their team in 1998 and paired Roman with Anna Semenovich. He competed with Semenovich during the 1999–2000 season. In mid-2000, Roman called Navka and asked to skate with her again. They were coached by Alexander Zhulin. ostomarov has skated with celebrity partners in Russian ice shows such as Ice Age. After the Olympics, the pair retired from competition, but still comtinue to skate in shows together. In 2008, Roman played the role of figure skater Viktor Molodtsov in the TV series Hot Ice. He has been married twice and has two children. He is 49 years old.

Tatiana N: With Roman Kostomarov, she is the 2006 Olympic champion, two-time World champion, three-time Grand Prix Final champion, and three-time European champion. She had three different skating partners, first representing the Soviet Union, then Belarus, then Russia, but she was at her most successful with Roman. In October 2011, she became a 2014 Winter Olympics ambassador. She was married to Alexander Zhulin for nine years. She is currently married to Putin's press spokesman. She has two daughters. She is 51 years old.

Maxim: With Tatiana Totmianina, he is the 2006 Olympic champion, two-time World champion, and five-time European champion. During the free skate at the 2004 Skate America, Maxim lost his balance while attempting an axel lasso lift and Tatiana slammed to the ice head first. Although she did not blame him, the accident weighed heavily on Maxim and when the pair returned to training, he was unable to lift her due to panic. He began seeing a sport psychologist who helped him overcome it. The pair toured with the Champions on Ice show, with other notable skaters. They also performed regularly in Ilia Averbukh's ice shows in Russia, including Ice Symphony and Professionals' Cup. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two children. He is 49 years old.

Tatiana T: With Maxim Marinin, she is the 2006 Olympic champion, two-time World champion, and five-time European champion. During the free skate at the 2004 Skate America, Tatiana slammed to the ice head first. She sustained a concussion and spent the night in a local hospital. Tatiana said that, although she felt pain, she had no memory of the accident and was not afraid to return to the ice. She recovered from her injuries rapidly and was able to return to the ice within days. Twice in a row, they finished second at the World Championships to their Chinese rivals Shen Xue / Zhao Hongbo, before finally winning gold in 2004. The day after winning their first World title, Totmianina suffered a dislocated shoulder in practice. They were unable to perform in the exhibition. She is married to Alexei Yagudin, they have two daughters. She is 44 years old.

2002 Olympics: Salt Lake City, USA This one has a lot of reading lol (In the 2002 Olympic long program, Russia skated a good program although Anton had a stumble on a jump element before quickly regaining unison with Elena. Canada, meanwhile, had no obvious mistakes, although their program was easier. Four judges placed the Canadians first, while five had Russia as the winners, with the Canadians receiving higher technical scores and the Russians higher presentation scores. They were first awarded the gold and the Canadians the silver. After an investigation into the judging, the decision was made to award both pairs a gold medal. No silver medal was awarded in this event.)

Alexei: He is the 2002 Olympic champion, a four-time World champion, a three-time European champion, a two-time Grand Prix Final champion, the 1996 World Junior champion, and a two-time World Professional champion. Alexei is the only skater (all disciplines included) to have achieved a Golden Slam, a victory in all major championships (Olympic Games, World Championships, European Championships, Grand Prix assignments, Grand Prix Final) in the same season. The 2001-2002 season simply belonged to Alexei Yagudin. After his retirement from competetive skating, Alexei has toured as a professional skater and appeared as a show host, an actor and a figure skating commentator for Russian television networks. In 2019, he opened the Figure Skating Center Alexei Yagudin in Belarus where he coaches. He is married to another former skater, Tatiana Totmianina, and has two daughters. He is 46 years old.

Sarah: She is the 2002 Olympic Champion and the 2001 World bronze medalist in ladies' singles. Sarah is the fourth of six children. One of her younger sisters, Emily, is also a figure skater and competed at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Sarah's win is widely considered one of the biggest upsets in figure skating history. She was the youngest skater in the competition, and was not expected to seriously challenge the favorites, Michelle Kwan and Russia's Irina Slutskaya. Sarah became the first woman in Olympic history to land two triple-triple jump combinations in a 4-minute free skate. Unlike most skaters, she also executed jumps and spins clockwise. She filed papwerwork to run for Congress in 2023, but withdrew from the race. She is 41 years old.

Gwendal: The pair also qualified to compete int the 1994 Olympicsm but Marina's French citizenship came a few weeks too late, and they were unable to compete. Gwendal holds a management degree from EMLYON Business School, a DEUG in materials science, and a maîtrise in STAPS from Claude Bernard University Lyon 1. He has two daughters, and he released a single "Baby Rock" in 2014. Their signature move was Marina lifting Gwendal off the ice, switching the traditional gender roles in lifts. In 2003, Gwendal founded a consulting firm, Soléus. He has also worked for Eurosport, interviewing athletes. He is 54 years old.

Marina: Competing with Gwendal, she is the 2002 Olympic champion, the 1998 Olympic bronze medalist, the 2000 World champion, and a six-time French national champion. Both her parents were also figure skaters.  She wanted to bring Gwendal back to Russia with her but his family was opposed, so she moved to France. She settled in France and began learning the language but experienced homesickness. She focused intensely on skating and insisted her partner, who was dividing his time between skating and his education, be equally focused on their career. Their first year together produced many quarrels and they came close to splitting up. Their coach, however, immediately felt it was a promising partnership, saying "They are like fire and ice". Marina married a Russian actor after the two met when they were partnered on a celebrity ice dancing television show. They have two children. The family currently lives in Moscow. Marina spends time in France and works with young ice dancers. She is 50 years old.

Anton: He and Elena Ekaterina Gordeeva selected the pair as her and Sergei Grinkov's skating doubles in a documentary on the team after her husband's death. had an on-and-off romantic relationship between 1996 and 2002. They are still close friends, and he is godfather to one of Elena's children. In 2003, the pair retired from competitive skating. From 2002 to 2006, they toured with Stars on Ice, then returned to Russia. In 2010, he registered as a candidate for the presidency of the Figure Skating Federation of Russia, but withdrew after the constitution was altered, stating that the changes left the president as nothing more than a figurehead. In 2023, following the death of the incumbent president Aleksandr Gorshkov, Anton became the acting president. In February 2025 he was elected as president. Anton is divorced and has one son. He is 49 years old.

Elena: With Anton, she is the 1998 and 1999 World champion, 1998 Olympic silver medalist and 2002 Olympic champion. Elena first competed with Oleg Shliakhov for Latvia and won gold at the 1995 Trophée de France. Oleg was an abusive asshole, verbaly and physically. While training together in January 1996, she suffered a serious injury, when Shliakhov's blade sliced into her skull while the pair were practicing a side-by-side camel spin. She was left partly paralyzed and unable to speak. During her hospitalization, Anton heard of the news, and traveled to Latvia to be with her. She recovered rapidly and began competing again in November 1996 with Anton. Within two years of the accident, Elena and Anton had established themselves as one of the best pair teams in the world. In November 2011, she announced her retirement from performing. She now coaches at the Yubileyny rink in Saint Petersburg. She is 48 years old.

David: The Canadian Figure Skating Association invited the pair to compete at Skate Canada, where they immediately made a statement by placing second in the short program, ahead of reigning Canadian Champions.Their successes made them favorites for the Canadian title, but they struggled technically and finished second. The silver medal earned them a spot on the Four Continents and World teams, but David's back pain forced the pair to withdraw from both competitions. They would ultimately spend two months off the ice recuperating. After the Olympics, the pair turned professional and toured North America with Stars on Ice. The man unfortunatly doesn't seem as good with relationships as he is with skating. David was married to ice dancer Marie-Josee Fortin for a year before he began skating with Jamie and ended his marriage. He and Jamie were married for 5 years and had one son before divorcing. They continued to skate together after their divorce until retiring in 2012. He has been married to Ekaterina Gordeeva since 2020. He is 51 years old.

Jamie: With David, she is the 2002 Olympic Champion and 2001 World Champion. Jamie competed first as a singles skater, winning the novice bronze medal and placing eighth in junior's at the Canadian Championships. In 1994, she won the short program and finished with the bronze medal in the junior event at the Canadian Championships. After a single practice together, she moved to Montreal to skate with him. Their Olympic controversy resulted in several changes to the judging system. Initially, anonymous judging was incorporated to "relieve outside pressure" from judges by separating their names from their marks so pressurers could not know whether the judge had acted as they wished. After two years of this system, the Code of Points was implemented and began use in the Grand Prix season of 2003–04, and full usage for all 2004–05 competitions and thereafter. After their 2010 divorce, she married her season 1 Battle of the Blades partner Craig Simpson, they have also since divorced. She said that they separated due to Simpson's disagreement with her political views. She posts a lot of fake news articles on Facebook, and is a passionate anti-vaxxer. She is 49 years old.

1998 Olympics: Nagano, Japan

Ilia: He is the 1998 Olympic Champion, the 1995 European Champion, the 1997–1998 Grand Prix Final champion, and the 1995 World Junior champion. Kulik withdrew from the 1998 World Championships due to his recurring back injury. He retired from competitive skating and has focused on performing in shows. Kulik has skated with the Stars on Ice tour, shows in Russia, the 2009 Ice All Stars, the 2010 Festa On Ice. Ilia married Ekaterina Gordeeva in 2002, and had once daughter with her, but they divorced in 2016. He has not remarried. The two of them opened a skating rink together in 2012. He is 49 years old.

Tara: She was the 1997 U.S. national champion and world champion, a two-time Champions Series Final champion, and the 1998 Olympic champion. She is the youngest single skater Olympic champion and World champion ever. She was the first woman to complete a triple loop, triple loop combination, which became her signature jump element, in competition. Tara retired from competitive figure skating in 1998. She performed in live shows before retiring from figure skating in 2002. Tara was two months younger than Sonja Henie when she came in first place at the 1928 Winter Olympics, breaking a record that had stood for 70 years. She also became the youngest skater to win the World Professional Figure Skating Championships, completing a triple flip, a triple toe loop, and a triple Salchow jump in her free skate program. In 2014, Tara became one of NBC's primary figure skating commentators, where she and Johnny Weir have become practically a matching set, who's voices we are all very familier with. Tara married sports producer Todd Kapostasy in 2017. She is 43 years old.

Artur: Although his previous partner decided to retire from competition in 1994, Artur wanted to continue his competitive career and eventually chose Oksana who also trained in Saint Petersburg. The pair retired from competition after these Olympics, but continued to skate shows. He currently works with Natalia Pavlova as a coach in Moscow. He is 58 years old.

Oksana: With Artur Dmitriev, she is the 1998 Olympic champion and 1996 European champion. She teamed up with Artur Dmitriev in February 1995. Artur was much more experienced, having already competed at two Olympics with Natalia Mishkutenok and won two Olympic medals, gold in 1992 and silver in 1994. She currently coaches in Russia. She is 51 years old.

Evgeni: During the 1992–93 season, Grishuk and Platov won European and World silver medals. In 1993–94, they won silver at the European Championships. They ended the season with their first World title at the 1994 World Championships. They then left Russia and moved with Linichuk to Newark, Delaware for better training and living conditions. In the fall of 2005, Platov moved to New Jersey and became the assistant coach to his former rival, Alexander Zhulin, helping to coach the ice dancing team of Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov to European and Olympic gold medals.He is 58 years old.

Oksana: The pair missed most of 1994–95 due to injury but returned to win the 1995 World Championships. Injury also kept them out of competition in the first half of the 1996–97 season but they returned to win their second European and fourth World title. Oksana now coaches in California. In 1997–98, Grishuk and Platov used Memorial Requiem by Michael Nymann for the music in their free skating program and dedicated it to the people of Sarajevo. She is 54 years old.

1994 Olympics; Lillehammer, Norway

Alexei: He is the 1994 Olympic champion, the 1993 World bronze medalist, the 1997 European champion, the 1995/96 Champions Series Final champion, a four-time Russian champion, and the 1992 Soviet champion. He retired from Olympic-eligible skating in 1999 and won the World Professional Championships the same year. He became a prominent skating coach. He has notably coached Yulia Lipnitskaya, Anastasiia Gubanova, and currently coaches Mikhail Shaidorov, the current Olympic champion. He still lives and works in Russia. He is 52 years old.

Oksana: She was the 1993 World champion and the 1994 Olympic champion. Oksana was the first Olympic Champion from Ukraine to compete under the Ukrainian flag. She is also the first Olympic champion of independent Ukraine in any sport. After her mother's death, she lived with the wife of her coach, Stanislav Koritek, who had moved to Canada, and then with friends. After she won the gold medal in 1994, Oksana decided to move to the United States and participate in professional ice skating tours and shows. She followed one of her coaches to Connecticut. Later, she also became involved in a variety of TV appearances, and benefit skates. She has lived in the United States since 1994. In 1997, she published two books, a memoir about her life and one on skating. In a 2004 interview, she said she had been sober for six years, adding,"This is more important than Olympic gold." She currently lives in Las Vegas, USA. She is 48 years old.

Sergei: He and Ekaterina skated with Stars on Ice throughout the United States and Canada, which ran from November 1991 through April 1992. Shortly after their daughter's birth, the pair was back on the ice training for the new season of Stars on Ice, which debuted that November and ran through April 1993. Their last public performance, just days before Grinkov's sudden death, was in the "Skates for Gold III" television special in New York. They skated two numbers: Verdi's "Requiem Mass" and the Rolling Stones' "Out of Tears". On November 20th 1995, Grinkov collapsed and died from a massive heart attack while he and Gordeeva were in New York practicing for the upcoming 1995–1996 Stars on Ice tour. Doctors found that Grinkov had severely clogged coronary arteries (to the point where his arterial opening was reportedly the size of a pinhole), which caused the heart attack; later testing revealed that he also had a genetic risk factor linked with premature heart attacks. The risk factor is called the PLA-2 variant and is also known as the "Grinkov Risk Factor". He was 28 years old.

Ekaterina: In February 1996, Gordeeva returned to the ice, this time as a solo performer. Her first performance was a tribute to her late husband, skated to the "Adagietto" section of Gustav Mahler's "Symphony No. 5". The number was publicly performed only twice, first at a preview performance at the Minto Skating Club in Canada and then on February 27th 1996, in a televised tribute to Sergei called "Celebration of a Life" In the fall of 2007, Ekaterina was the headliner for "Skate for the Heart" a skating show televised nationally in the United States with the goal of raising awareness of heart disease, skating in honor of Sergei. She starred in the show a second time in 2008, this time dedicating her performance to her late father who, like Sergei, died of a sudden heart attack in 2008. In June of 2001, Gordeeva gave birth to her second daughter. Her father is 1998 Olympic men's singles champion Ilia Kulik. The couple married in a private ceremony in 2002, but divorced in 2016. She is married again to the 2002 Olympic pairs champion David Pelletier and they live in Canada together. She is 55 years old.

Oksana: With Evgeni, she is a two-time Olympic champion, four-time World champion, and three-time European champion. With previous partner Alexandr Chichkov, she is the 1988 World Junior champion. She and Evgeni had a brief partnership breakup in 1992, Due to tensions between her and fellow teamate, Maya Usova. Ekaterina left their training group. After a search for a new partner on her part, and a brief new partnership on his. Evgeni decided to leave as well and re-partner with Oksana. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California with her daughter, she is 54 years old.

Evgeni: He and Oksana won 20 consecutive competitions from 1994 to 1998. They were entered in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1998 for becoming the only team in the history of ice dancing to win Olympic gold twice. On their partnership, Evgenu said in 1998: "It's like being a husband and a wife. Sometimes, you fight. Sometimes, you walk away and calm down. I met her a long time ago, and I still remember her as a little girl" He also said: "It's hard to change her mind. She fights every step. But it works out. That's why she is so good." Since retiring from competition, he works as a coach and choreographer in Florida, USA. He is 58 years old.

1992 Olympics; Albertville, France (The Olympic flag represented athletes from the recently collapsed Soviet Union

Viktor: He won the bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics. His podium finish came as a surprise, because three former World Champions Brian Orser, Brian Boitano, and Alexander Fadeev were competing in this event. His gold at this Olympics was the first ever for a singles skater from the former Soviet Union. He won his third European Championships in January 1994, competing for the first time for the independent nation of Ukraine. In 1992, Petrenko had convinced his coach to take in Oksana Baiul, the 14-year-old Ukrainian orphan who had a talent for skating. The coach became both her guardian and coach, having Baiul live with her. Petrenko covered Baiul's expenses. With their guidance, Baiul won the 1993 World Championships and the gold medal at the 1994 Olympics. He and his wife have coached Johnny Weir since 2007. In 2022, Viktor was fired from his post as vice president of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation (UFFK) and expelled from the organization for taking part in an event in Russia that was organized by the Kremlin spokesman's wife.

Kristi: She was born with bi-lateral clubfoot, resulting in serial leg casting for most of the first year of her life followed by corrective shoes and bracing, and began skating as physical therapy. From sixth grade on, Kristi practiced from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. before school and sometimes after school. Her mother would drive her to the rink every morning at 4 a.m. and wait for her to finish. She started out in paris skating, with Rudy Galindo, she was the 1988 World junior champion and a two-time national champion. In 1990, Kristi decided to focus solely on singles. As a single skater, she was this Olympic champion, a two-time World champion, and the 1992 U.S. champion. After retiring from competition, she toured extensively with Stars On Ice for over a decade. Originally, Stars On Ice was a 30-city tour, but when Yamaguchi joined, it quickly became a 60-city tour due to her ability to captivate an audience. She collaborated with a variety of choreographers to create diverse programs. She is an author and philanthropist, She is 54 years old.

Artur: He is a two-time Olympic champion, having won gold with Natalia in 1992 and with Oksana Kazakova in 1998. He and Natalia also won Olympic silver in 1994. Artur is the only male pair skater to win the Olympics with two different partners. Despite being close competitive rivals, he was friends with both Grinkov and Sikharulidze. He helped Moskvina coach Sikharulidze even while they were competing against each other. Artur has been married twice and has a son from both marriages, respectively. He currently lives in Moscow and coaches. He is 58 years old.

Natalia: With Artur, she is the 1992 Olympic champion, the 1994 Olympic silver medalist, a two-time World champion, and a two-time European champion. She has a masters degree in physical education. One hallmark of her style was her flexibility and their creative spins, especially one in which Natalia would do a split and point her head down, with an arm around Artur's calf so that they were both vertical and aligned; this signature move, called "Natalia’s spin" was incorporated into most of their programs. Another signature move was a backwards inside death spiral in which Natalia bent backwards, holding her foot behind and above her head while Artur also held her raised skate blade and her free hand. They competed before, during, and after the breakup of the Soviet Union, thus, they competed for the Soviet Union, the Unified Team and Russia, all within a four-year period. She moved to the U.S. where she lives and coaches. She is 55 years old.

Sergei: With Marina, he is the 1992 Olympic champion, 1988 Olympic silver medalist, 1984 Olympic bronze medalist, three-time World champion, and four-time European champion. He and Marina got married in September 1984. They now live in the U.S. where their second son, Anthony Ponomarenko is a competetive ice dancer who made his first Olympic appearance this year. Sergei is 65 years old.

Marina: She and Sergei are the first figure skaters in any discipline to have won Olympic medals in three different colors. They won the bronze medal in 1984, the silver medal in 1988, and the gold medal in 1992. They were known as "traditionalists with a light elegant touch" and for excelling both technically and artistically. They were almost the Virtue/Moir of their time. With many noting their free skate program as "highly eroticised". Marina and Sergei are still married. She is 59 years old.

1988 Olympics: Calgary, Canada

Brian: In addition to his Olympic gold, Brian is a two time World Champion, and the four time U.S. National Champion. Going into the Olympics, Brian Boitano and Brian Orser each had won a world title and each had an excellent, balanced repertoire. Both men performed military-themed programs. Boitano's free skate was set to music from Napoleon and Josephine, the television miniseries. He wore a blue stretch suit with red braids and epaulets, and used military gestures and postures as much as his music allowed. He came out the victor in the "Battle of the Brians". In December 2013, Brian was named to the United States delegation to the 2014 Winter Olympics. In conjunction with that appointment, he publicly came out as gay. The Sochi games and Russia were the targets of criticism and LGBT activism because of a Russian anti-gay "propaganda" law passed in June 2013. In January 2014, Brian told the Associated Press that he had never wanted to come out until he was named to the delegation. With his win, Brian became the first Olympic champion to land the full complement of six types of triple jumps. He still lives in the U.S. and is 62 years old.

Katerina: She is one of only two skaters to defend a womens singles Olympic title, the other being Sonja Henie. Although she retired from cometitive skating after these Olympics, Katerina reappeared at the 1994 Winter Olympics to represent a reunified Germany while skating a Robin Hood themed program, a comeback performance which saw her receive the Goldene Kamera award. In 1994, Katerina published her autobiography Meine Jahre zwischen Pflicht und Kür (My Years between Compulsories and Freestyle). In 1995, Katerina was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Her farewell from show skating tour took place in February and March 2008. Following the dissolution of East Germany, Stasi files were found to show that the secret police had worked hard to keep Witt from defecting by giving her cars and accommodation, and permitted foreign travel. Witt found 3,500 pages detailing her life from the age of seven. The documentation had likely begun once she was identified as a promising child prodigy. She now lives and works in Berlin, she is 60 years old.

Sergei: Together with Ekaterina, he was a two time Olympic Champion and a four-time World Champion. He married Ekaterina in April 1991. They had two ceremonies because the USSR did not recognize religious ceremonies. The legal, state-approved wedding was on 20 April, and the religious wedding in the Russian Orthodox Church took place eight days later. They won virtually every competition they entered. In the 31 competitions they completed at the Senior and professional levels, they finished first 24 times and finished off the podium only once. There will be more about him and Ekaterina in a future post.

Ekaterina: Together with Sergei, she was a two time Olympic Champion and a four time World Champion. She and Sergei were paired up in 1981, when she was 10 and he was 14. From the time they won their first World Championships, they never placed lower than silver and took gold in all but four of the competitions they completed. They are one of the few pair teams in history to successfully complete a quadruple twist lift in international competition. They also completed the difficult maneuver at a second competition, but due to a problem with Sergei's boot strap and a misunderstanding about the rules, they were disqualified from that event. The referee signaled them to stop, going so far as to turn off their music, but they continued skating.

Anderi: Bukin was the USSR Olympic Team Flag Bearer at the 1988 Winter Olympics. The duo capped their lengthy career by winning the gold medal there and at that year's World Championships. Anderi married and divorced his first ice dancing partner, Olga Abankina, with whom he has a son. With his current girlfriend, Yelena Vasyukova, a former ice dancer, he has another son, Ivan Bukin, who is also a competitive ice dancer. He lives in Moscow and is 68 years old.

Natalia: With her partner Andrei Bukin, she is the 1988 Olympic Champion, 1984 Olympic silver medalist, four-time World champion, three-time World silver medalist, and five-time European champion. The Besti Squat was Bestemianova's signature move and is unofficially named for her. In 1983, Bestemianova married Igor Bobrin. After she finished her career she performed in the Ice Miniature Theater, led by her husband. Together, they run Moscow Stars on Ice. In 2006–2008, Bestemianova appeared as a coach and show-host in the Russian version of the British show Dancing on Ice. She lives in Moscow with her husband. She is 66 years old.

1984 Olympics; Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (Our only Olympics to take place in a country that no longer exists, not counting Germany's identity crisis)

Scott: In addition to his gold medal in these Winter Olympics, Scott won four consecutive World Championships and four consecutive U.S. championships. He is widely recognized for his innovative footwork sequences. After turning professional, Hamilton toured with the Ice Capades for two years, and then created "Scott Hamilton's American Tour," which later was renamed Stars on Ice. He co-founded, co-produced and performed in Stars on Ice for 15 years before retiring from the tour in 2001, though he still returns for occasional guest performances. In retirement, he has served as an Olympic analyst, and is the author of three books. He and his wife have two biological children, and two adopted. He and his family live in the U.S. He is 67 years old.

Katerina: She is a two time Olympic champion, four-time World Champion and two-time World silver medalist. She won six consecutive European Championships. Between 1984 and 1988, Witt won ten gold medals in eleven major international events, making her one of the most successful figure skaters ever. In 1988, Witt started a professional career, which was rare for East German athletes. She spent three years on tour in the United States with Brian Boitano. Their show, "Witt and Boitano Skating", was so successful that for the first time in ten years, New York's Madison Square Garden was sold out for an ice show. Later, she continued at Holiday on Ice in the United States and in western Europe. She also became an actress in the film Carmen on Ice (1989), which expanded upon her gold-medal free program in Calgary. In 1990, she received an Emmy Award for her role in this film. Witt's taste in on-ice fashion sometimes caused scandal. At the 1983 European Championships, she skated her Mozart short program in knee breeches instead of a skirt. Her blue, skirtless feather-trimmed 1988 costume for a showgirl-themed short program was considered too theatrical and sexy, and led to a change in the ISU regulations dubbed the "Katarina rule" which required female skaters to wear more modest clothing; skirts were required to cover the buttocks and crotch.

Oleg: With Elena, he is the 1984 Olympic champion, 1988 Olympic silver medalist, and three-time World Champion. After retiring from competition, Vasiliev became a coach, leading the Tatiana Totmianina/Maxim Marinin to the 2006 Olympic title. He was married three times, first to Elena, then to two other non-skaters, respectively. Vasiliev initially had no interest in coaching but changed his mind. He coached one season for the Latvian federation and then about two years for the French federation near Paris. Since 1998, Vasiliev has coached in Chicago and Saint Petersburg.To my knowledge he is still with his third wife, in Moscow. He is 66 years old.

Elena: She and Oleg were married from 1984 to 1992. Valova is now remarried to and had a son in 1996. She moved to Pennsylvania, U.S. in 1997. After winning their third World title, the pair retired from ISU competition. After performing for a year in Igor Bobrin's ice theatre, they signed a U.S. contract, becoming the first Soviets to do so without losing their citizenship. The pair performed together in various shows and events until the end of 1997. She currently teaches skating at the Robert Morris University Island Sports Center. She coached Kylie Gleason/Taylor Toth, who were the 2002 U.S. champions in juvenile pairs and the 2003 U.S. champions in intermediate pairs. She is 63 years old.

Christopher: In addition to gold at these Olympics, he and Jayne have a bronze medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics. They were also four-time world and European champions and seven-time British champions. He and Jayne were ambassadors for the 2012 European Figure Skating Championships in England. In February 2014, they visited Sarajevo for the 30th anniversary of the 1984 Olympics, and recreated their Bolero routine in the same arena where they won the gold. He has been married and divorced twice. From 1977 to 1980, he was a police constable with Nottinghamshire Police. In 2018 Christopher choreographed the free programme of Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, who won the gold medal in pair skating with a world record at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. He is 67 years old.

Jayne: Their free programme at this Winter Olympics was performed to the music of Boléro, which had to be cut down from 17 minutes to just 4 minutes. They received twelve perfect 6.0 marks, one of five occasions they were awarded all perfect scores for artistic impression. It was one of the most popular achievements in the history of British sport, watched by a British television audience of 24 million people. Since the time limit was four minutes and ten seconds and their music was four minutes 28 seconds, they began on their knees and moved their bodies to the music for 18 seconds before starting to skate. Jayne married in 1990, and they are parents of two adopted children. She is 68 years old.

1980 Olympics; Lake Placid, USA

Robin: He was the 1980 Olympic champion, the 1980 European champion, a three-time World medalist, and four-time British national champion. He followed this with a successful career as a professional figure skater and later starred in ice shows as well as producing several of his own. Off the ice, Robin commentates on figure skating events for the BBC and was head judge on ITV's Dancing on Ice show from 2006 to 2014. He has also appeared in several theatre productions, including the West End. He hit both the longest Axel jump and the longest back flip on figure skates in the Guinness Book of World Records. He lives in England with his husband. He is 68 years old.

Anett: She is the 1980 Olympic champion, two-time World champion, four-time European champion, and five-time East German champion. In 1981, she announced her retirement, saying in she had reached all her goals but she said she later regretted her decision. Annett was a judge at international skating events in the late 1980s but the ISU banned her after she appeared in Skates of Gold shows and Katarina Witt's film, Carmen. The ISU restored her eligibility in 1994, along with that of professional skaters. In the 1990s, Pötzsch worked at a bank but quit her job in 1999 in order to coach. She coaches in Chemnitz, Germany, and in 2004 became an ISU technical specialist. Her students include Daniel Dotzauer, and Sandy Hoffmann. She married Axel Witt, the brother of  Katarina Witt, but the couple divorced in 1990. Their daughter is the 2000 German pair skating champion, so we'll see her later. She still coaches in Germany and is 65 years old.

Alexander: Our last entry for these two. He and Irina were married in April 1975. Their son, also named Alexander, was born in 1979. The pair later divorced. His medal for the 1980 Olympics was sold at the RR Auction auction house for $93,000. Alexander said that he had nothing to do with the sale, the medal was kept by the parents of his ex-wife. After retiring from competition, Zaitsev became a coach and for a time was involved in FS administration. He still lives in Russia and is 73 years old.

Irina: She became a member of the Public Chamber of Russia in 2005. In the 2007 legislative election, she was elected to the State Duma as a member of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. On 17 December 2012, Rodnina supported the Dima Yakovlev Law, the law in the Russian Parliament banning adoption of Russian orphans by citizens of the United States. She remained in office until 2016. She lives privately in Russia and is 76 years old.

Gennadi: A two time World champion and one time Olympic champion. He and Natalia got married after they retired from competition in 1981. The couple initially lived in Moscow and then moved to the United States in the early '90s. After coaching in Moscow, they accepted an offer to coach in the U.S. They moved with their students in June 1994 and coached at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. In September 2007, they moved to the Ice Works Skating Complex in Aston, Pennsylvania. He and Natalia are still married and living in the U.S. He is 75 years old.

Natalia: She began skating due to her mother who enjoyed figure skating. She had a dozen coaches before ending up in the group of Elena Tchaikovskaia. They are unfortunatly the only team ever to unsuccessfully defend a World title after winning the Olympics. She and Gennadi have a long list of successful students that you can look up, there are way too many to list here. They are still married and live in the U.S. She is 70 years old.

1968 Olympics; Grenoble, France (Trigger Warning on Wolfgang's paragraph: Human Trafficking)

Wolfgang: He is the 1968 Olympic gold medalist, a two-time World silver medalist, and three-time European silver medalist. He was by far the most shocking skater to research, I can't possibly prepare you for what he did. In 2002 he was sentenced to 1½ years in prison on trafficking charges related to importing young Lithuanian girls to Austria to serve as prostitutes. After his release from prison, Wolfgang engaged in a plot to kidnap a Romanian businessman's daughter and hold her for $4 million ransom. He had hired someone to commit the crime, but it was never executed. The plot was discovered and Schwarz was arrested in 2006. He confessed to the crime, commenting, “I admit it was my idea to kidnap the woman. I cannot explain it.” He was sentenced to eight years in prison in August 2006. He is now out of prison and living in Vienna, he is 78 years old.

Peggy: She is the 1968 Winter Olympic Champion and a three-time World Champion. Her medal was the only gold won by the USA at these Olympics. Philosopher Spencer Wertz called Peggy's Olympic free skating program "a watershed in the development of an artistic component of competitive skating." Her costumes were made by hand, by her mother. Since 1981, she has been a skating commentator for ABC Sports. She also has a cameo in the movie Blades of Glory, as a skating judge. Peggy married her teenage sweetheart, a former amateur figure skater. The couple have two sons and three grandchildren. They currently live in Denver, Colorado. She is 77 years old.

Oleg: He and Ludmila contributed to the development of pair skating, including the creation of three death spirals: the backward inside, the forward inside, and the forward outside, which they respectively dubbed the "Cosmic spiral", "Life spiral", and "Love spiral". They attended the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and performed their last exhibition dance in 2016, when Oleg was 84. He died in 2023, at the age of 91.

Ludmila: She and Oleg loved skating so much that they decided not to have children, so as to continue skating as long as possible. They most definitely did, Ludmila was 80 when she and Oleg gave their final performance. She died in 2017, at age 81. They are buried together in St. Petersburg.

1964 Olympics; Innsbruck, Austria

Manfred: He is the 1964 Olympic champion, the 1964 World champion, and an eight time German national champion. His parents were both figure skating coaches. After his Olympic win, the Ice Capades offered Manfred a $1.5 million three-year contract but he declined because of a promise to his parents. For two years beginning in 1967, he served as the sports director, of the Deutsche Eislauf Union. After his parents gave their approval, he performed with the Deutsche Eistheater from 1969 to 1973. Manfred was also a pop singer and actor before becoming a coach and sport teacher. He was the first West German national coach for figure skating between 1974 and 1981. Manfred now owns some sport shops, and lives in Munich with his wife, he is 83 years old.

Sjoukje: She was the 1964 Olympic champion, the 1960 Olympic silver medalist, a three-time World champion, five-time European champion, and the six-time Dutch national champion. She was the first Dutch athlete to win a Winter Olympics gold medal. After 1964, Sjoukje turned professional and toured with Holiday On Ice from 1964 to 1972. She became the advisor to the figure skating section of the Dutch Skating Federation. She was the daughter of Lou Dijkstra, a speed skater who competed in the 1936 Olympics. She was married and had two daughters. Sjoukje died in May 2024, at age 82 from cancer and heart failure.

Oleg: With his wife Ludmila he was a two-time Olympic champion and four-time World champion. Oleg started skating relatively late, at the age of 15, In 1951, he was drafted into the Navy but used each leave to skate. In 1979, the pair defected to Switzerland and became Swiss citizens in 1995. They continued to skate at ice shows and exhibitions until their seventies.

Ludmila: She started skating late as well, at 16, after having seen the ice revue movie "Springtime on ice". Ludmila trained in Moscow where she met Oleg in the spring of 1954. She moved to Leningrad in 1955 and began training with him in 1956 following his navy discharge. They were coached initially by Igor Moskvin and then by Pyotr Orlov, but parted ways with Orlov after a number of disagreements. The pair then trained without a coach at a rink in Moscow. In 1961, they decided to work with Stanislav Zhuk to raise their technical level. She kept her maiden name after marrying Oleg.

1960 Olympics; Squaw Valley, USA

David: He is the younger brother of Hayes Alan Jenkins, the previous gold medalist. He was a three-time World champion, and a four-time U.S. champion. He performed a triple Axel jump in a 1957 exhibition, 21 years before that jump was landed for the first time in competition. David retired from skating after winning his Olympic gold, after which he graduated with an M.D. in 1963 and immediately after served two years in the U.S. Air Force. In June 1965 he got married and settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he became a gastroenterologist. He is currently 89 years old. Carol Heiss is his sister-in-law.

Carol: She became the 1960 Olympic champion, the 1956 Olympic silver medalist, and a five-time World champion. Her younger sister and brother, Nancy Heiss and Bruce Heiss, were also elite figure skating competitors. During the 1950s, the three skating Heiss siblings were featured in Life Magazine. In 1953, Heiss became the first female skater to land a double Axel jump. One of her trademarks was performing a series of alternating clockwise and counterclockwise single Axels. During her competitive career, Carol attended New York University, graduating after the 1960 Winter Olympics. In 1961, she married American figure skater Hayes Alan Jenkins, who had won the 1956 Olympic gold medal. They have three children together. She is currently 86 years old.

Robert: He teamed up with Barbara Wagner in 1952. They became the 1960 Olympic champions, four-time World champions, and five-time Canadian national champions. After retiring from competition, the pair toured with Ice Capades. After his competitive career, he was a talented choreographer. Paul choreographed for Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming, notably. He also spent 16 extraordinary years as a choreographer for Disney on Ice. Later, he returned to competitive skating to coach rising stars like Mirai Nagasu, leaving his mark on another generation of skaters. He died in December of 2024, at age 87

Barbara: Robert and Barbara first teamed up at 14 and 15 years old. The duo continued their partnership from 1961 through 1964, however, as professional skaters with the Ice Capades. She married several years after the Olympics and had a son, but continued to be involved in figure skating as a coach. She was made a member of the Canada Sports Hall of Fame in 1957, the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1980. She is currently 88 years old.

1956 Olympics; Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy

Hayes: He is the 1956 Olympic champion, a four-time World champion, and a four-time U.S. national champion. Outside of skating, Hayes attended Colorado College and Harvard Law School. He went on to work for the Goodyear tire company as an international lawyer. In 1961, Jenkins married U.S. figure skater Carol Heiss, who won silver at the 1956 Olympics and gold in 1960. They have been married 64 years and have three children together.

Tenely: She is the 1956 Olympic champion, the 1952 Olympic silver medalist, the 1953 and 1955 World Champion, the 1953 and 1955 North American champion, and the 1952–1956 U.S. national champion. Tenely started skating as a form of physical therapy after contracting polio. She would later say: "I think being paralyzed makes you aware of your muscles and you never want to let them go unused again." In 1956, while training for the Olympics, Tenely fell due to a rut in the ice and cut her right ankle joint to the bone with her left skate. The wound was stitched up by a shoemaker in the villiage where she was practicing.

Albright entered Radcliffe College in 1953 as a pre-med student, and focused on completing her education after the 1956 Olympics. She graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1961 at the age of 25, and went on to become a surgeon. She practiced for 23 years, continuing as a faculty member and lecturer at Harvard Medical School. In 1976 she served as the chief physician for the US Winter Olympic team. 1982, Tenely became a vice president of the U.S. Olympic Committee. Today, at 90 years old, she serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the World.Minds Foundation

Kurt: He started his career as a singles skater, taking bronze at the Austrian Championships in 1951/52 and silver in 1953. He placed 11th at both the 1952 Olympics and the 1953 World Championships. He was the coach of the Royal Dutch figure skating team from 1957–60. He later settled in the United States. Beginning in 1967, Kurt was an instructor at the Pennsylvania State University in its College of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. He was married and has two children, he died in 2015.

Sissy: With Kurt, she was the 1956 Olympic champion, the 1956 World champion, the 1956 European champion, and a five-time Austrian national champion. She also competed in single skating for a few years. She won silver at the 1952 Austrian Championships, placed 19th at the 1952 Winter Olympics, and finished ninth at the 1953 European Championships. In 1968, she decided to open a skating club in Wiener Neustadt, Austria and built a skating rink. She is still living in Austria, is 90 years old, and is a great-grandmother.

1952 Olympics: Oslo, Norway

Dick: As founder of Candid Productions, he created a variety of made-for-TV sports events on HBO. He was a commentator for more than 40 years of figure skating competitions, leading many of us to know his voice as well as his face. Button appeared on ABC's broadcasts of the U.S. and World Figure Skating Championships until ABC quit televising them in 2008. On December 31, 2000, Button was skating at a public rink when he fell, fracturing his skull and causing a serious brain injury. He recovered and became a national spokesman for the Brain Injury Association of America, as well as continuing his Emmy Award winning commentary on broadcasts of the Olympic Games and on various figure-skating TV shows. Button died on January 30, 2025, at the age of 95. His death occurred less than a day after the plane wreck that killed several participants, coaches, and attendees of the 2025 U.S. Championships.

Jeannette: In addition to skating, she was also a competitive tennis player, reaching the junior finals at Wimbledon in 1947 before giving up tennis to focus on skating. She won four British Championships. She won bronze at the 1948 Olympics, and in 1951, she won gold at the European Championships in Zurich and at the World Championships in Milan. After her Olympic victory, Jeannette bypassed a lucrative professional career due to a knee injury. After retiring from skating, she worked at Pestalozzi Children's Villiage in Switzerland. She married Marc Wirz, the brother of Swiss skater Suzi Wirz. They had four children before divorcing in 1973. Their daughter Christina Wirz was a member of Switzerland's 1983 World champion curling team.

Paul: He was a two-time World champion and 1952 Olympic champion. He and Rita got married during their active international figure skating. The Falk's were not able to participate in international competitions until 1951 because Germany was excluded from the international sport after the war. He died 8.5 months before Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot became the next German gold medalists in pairs in 2018.

Ria: Interestingly, the two of them did not have a coach. They were the first couple who performed side by side double jumps and they also invented the Lasso-Lift. Known in their time as "The Falk's", they were never defeated in amateur competition. They were also world pair championships in competitive rollar skating. After winning the Olympics in 1952 they turned pro and worked for Holiday on Ice.

1948 Olympics; St. Moritz, Switzerland

Dick: He was another two-time Olympic champion and five-time consecutive world champion. He was also the only non-European man to have become European champion. Dick is credited as having been the first skater to successfully land the double Axel jump in competition, as well as the first triple jump of any kind. (triple loop) He also invented the flying camel spin, which was originally known as the "Button camel". After his father overheard him being told he would never be a good skater, Dick was sent to New York, to train with coach Gus Lussi, who coached him throughout his competitive career. Dick started a surge of popularity in the sport in the U.S. Over the next four Olympics, there would be 16 medalists from the U.S.

Barbara: In addition to her Olympic gold, Barbara was a two-time World champion and a four-time Canadian national champion. After the Olympic win she received a telegram from the Prime Minister, stating that she helped Canadians get through post-war gloom. She is still the only Canadian to have won gold in Olympic women's singles. She went on to replace Sonja Henie in the starring role with the "Hollywood Ice Revue" in Chicago. She carried the Olympic torch for the 1988 and 2010 Olympics. In 2012, the city of Ottawa announced the creation of the Barbara Ann Scott Gallery, which displays photographs, her championship awards, and the Olympic gold medal that she formally donated to the city in 2011.

Pierre: Pierre and Micheline were born six months apart in 1925. During their time there was only one ice rink in the country, so that was where they skated. But they missed out on competitions and skating time due to the rink being severely damadged by bombs during WWll, they were unable to resume practices until the rink was rebuilt post-war. In the winter of 1945-46, they travelled outside the country for the first time since the war. They described it as a great pleasure for them to have contact with the ''outside world'' of skating. Pierre passed away in his mid-fifties in 1981.

Micheline: She and Pierre were the 1948 Olympic champions, the 1947 and 1948 World Champions, and the 1947 European champions. Their win at this Olympics was the first, and only Winter Olympic gold medal for Belgium until 2022. Micheline and her husband James emigrated to Canada in 1956 and had two children. Micheline passed away on March 18, 2023, at the age of ninety-eight.

1936 Olympics; Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Karl: After World War II, Karl participated in rebuilding the Engelmann's ice rink, and from 1946 on he coached young skaters there. He attempted to compete at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but he was not able to do so after suffering burns from handling the Olympic flame. He moved to the U.S. in 1956 and worked there as a figure skating coach until 1962. In 1962, he returned as a coach to Vienna-Hernals and lived and worked there until he died.

Sonja:  The costumes Sonja wore in her shows and films, which were short, revealing, full of sequins and feathers, and more like the costumes of female entertainers than of the clothes worn in the more conservative world of competitive figure skating of the time, most likely influenced the costume choices of later generations of competitive figure skaters. She was married three times. After her retirement in 1956, Sonja and her third/final husband settled in Oslo and accumulated a large collection of modern art that formed the basis for the Henie Onstad Art Centre at Høvikodden near Oslo. She is buried in Oslo on the hilltop overlooking the Henie Onstad Art Centre, named after her.

Ernst: He also enjoyed success as a single skater and won silvers at the European, World and Olympic games in singles. They also developed a ''Baier lift'', which was similar to a twist lift but lacked a release of Maxi into the air. Ernst had three children with maxi, and one in another marriage, but they also divorced.

Maxi: Maxi was also an accomplished single skater, winning the German nationals three times, from 1933 to 1935. Skating with Ernst, she won seven national titles, five European titles, and four World titles, in addition to their Olympic gold. Ernst and Maxi had a messy relationship. After their skating career, they were married, divorced, then re-married and divorced again. They had three children together. Herber later sold her Olympic gold medal and donated the money to survivors of the Holocaust.