ST. LOUIS — Consistency is its own form of belief. Confidence in accrued success. That’s why Madison Chock and Evan Bates, certainly headed to their fourth Winter Olympics, won’t be changing their approach. If the American duo is to finally make an Olympic podium in the ice dance, it will be because they believed. Disappointment wasn’t a deterrent. The ends didn’t ruin the means. “It’s going to be a lot more of what it has been,” Chock said. “We know what to do. We’ve got our plan, and we’re exe
If the American duo is to finally make an Olympic podium in the ice dance, it will be because they believed. Disappointment wasn’t a deterrent. The ends didn’t ruin the means.
“It’s going to be a lot more of what it has been,” Chock said. “We know what to do. We’ve got our plan, and we’re executing it. We don’t plan on deviating from it. We’re going to stick to it. Trust ourselves. Trust our team. And do what we know how to do, which is prepare and skate.”
Chock and Bates scored 137.17 in Saturday’s free dance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships to secure their seventh title in the ice dance at nationals, with a total score of 228.87. They’ll certainly be one of the three duos named to the U.S. Olympic team Sunday and will vie for their first ice dance medal at the Games. They won team gold with the U.S. in Beijing in 2022.
The U.S. has earned a medal in ice dancing in five consecutive Olympics.
Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto took silver in 2006. Meryl Davis and Charlie White won silver in 2010 and gold in 2014. Maia and Alex Shibutani won bronze in 2018. Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue won bronze in the last cycle.
“I remember growing up and looking up to Tanith and Ben, and Meryl and Charlie and idolizing them,” Chock said. “Just what they embodied for ice dance and encompassed. I really took that to heart and let it guide me and lead me. Hopefully, we can leave a little bit of that legacy for the next generation and keep the love for the sport going.”
That legacy warrants an Olympic medal. Reasons suggest this is the time for Chock and Bates. Perhaps their last chance. They were Olympians in 2014, 2018 and 2022, finishing eighth, ninth and fourth, respectively. Perhaps the only thing more unique than a pair so good not having a medal is them still being elite enough to go get one.
The pair owns nearly every medal in the sport and has won three straight world championship titles. Saturday, their seventh U.S. championship gold set a new American record.
“It means everything to us,” said Chock, a Redondo Beach, Calif., native. “Seven-time national champions seems surreal.”
Chock and Bates now have 14 total medals at nationals. They’ve won three golds, a silver and a bronze at the world championships and another eight medals at the Four Continents Championships, including three golds. Seven times they medaled at the Grand Prix Final, the culmination of the sport’s annual top-circuit season, winning three.
What’s missing, however, is an Olympic medal of their own. They don’t need it as much as they deserve it. The worthiness of these future Hall of Famers can’t be questioned. But the cinema that is their story keeps alive one last drama. A final, albeit massive, honor on their resume. As if the figure skating gods required a longevity of excellence before cementing them as all-time legends.
Opportunity seems to favor them. The 2022 Olympic champions, France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, are no longer a pair. The Russian ban takes last cycle’s silver medalist Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov off the table.
Chock and Bates should be contending for gold.
“I think our performance today was definitely the best that we’ve skated the free dance all year,” Bates said. “And I think it shows the plan that Maddie just spoke about is working. We like to build momentum through this season. It’s a great feeling going into a big event knowing that you’ve skated well in the previous competition. We’re gonna roll with that momentum.”
A few clutch programs preceded Chock and Bates on Saturday. Siblings Oona and Gage Brown executed their best free dance ever, registering a personal-best score of 118.59. Their exhilarating performance left Gage lying face down on the ice as Oona coolly skated around him and soaked in their serenade.
But then Caroline Green and Michael Parsons vaulted them. Then Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko leapfrogged Green and Parsons. And Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik followed that with the performance of the night. Their 127.67 score beat their previous best by five points.
Zingas and Kolesnik took silver. Carreira and Ponomarenko finished third.
Three pairs are eligible to compete in Milan. Carreira recently received her passport after four years of driving hours each day to practice in Canada with her partner.
“I live minutes away from the rink now,” she said. “I’m sure the border agents miss me. They were really invested in our skating. A lot of them when we would pull up, they told us they watched our competitions. They asked where we were going next.”
When Chock and Bates hit the ice, their preeminence became instantly obvious. Speed does nothing to impede their chemistry. They execute lifts seamlessly, with Chock’s statuesque poses in the air adding a monarchial splendor.
They are the class of American ice dancing. Elite in the world. At 33 and 36, respectively, Chock and Bates still exhibit palpable emotion and energy. It’s refined, though, to the point of exquisite. Their incorporation of Chock’s flowing black skirt, as they danced to a version of “Paint It Black” by Ramin Djawadi, flaunted their fluidity.
They’re on another level. Now they just need to be in Milan.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Olympics, Women's Olympics
2026 The Athletic Media Company
Category: General Sports
