Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee suspended the Olympic Committees of Russia and Belarus. The skating federations of Russia and Belarus were each permitted to nominate one skater or team from each discipline to participate at the Skate to Milano as a means to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs). Each nominee was required to pass a special screening process to assess whether they had displayed support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine or had any contractual links to the Russian or Belarusian military.[1][2] No pairs teams from either Russia or Belarus are competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The pair skating competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics was held on 15 and 16 February at the Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan, Italy.[3] Having won both segments of the team event, Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan were seen as the most likely candidates to win the gold.[4] Miura and Kihara were two-time World champions and also won two silver medals in the team event at the 2022 and 2026 Winter Olympics, winning both pairs segments in the latter.[5]
At age 42, Deanna Stellato-Dudek of Canada was the oldest woman to compete in figure skating at the Olympics.[6] She had competed in single skating as a teenager, winning a gold medal at the 1999 Junior Grand Prix Final and a silver medal at the 2000 World Junior Championships, before retiring in 2001 due to injury.[7] She returned to skating as a pair skater in 2016, first with Nathan Bartholomay and competing for the United States, and then with Maxime Deschamps and competing for Canada. In 2024, she became the oldest woman to win a gold medal at the World Figure Skating Championships. Speaking about her record-setting accomplishment, Stellato-Dudek stated that "it is something I take with huge pride. I hope others can be inspired to stay around a lot longer, not only in sport, but also in other aspects of life.”[8] At the 2025 John Nicks Pairs Competition, Stellato-Dudek performed a backflip with an assist from Deschamps. Stellato-Dudek, who cited Surya Bonaly of France as an inspiration, became the first woman to perform the backflip since it became a legal element in figure skating in 2024.[9] On 2 February, Skate Canada announced that Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps would not compete in the team event after Stellato-Dudek suffered an injury during practice, but that no decision had been made with regards to the pairs event.[10] She was later medically cleared to compete. After their arrival in Milan, it was later confirmed that she and Deschamps would not perform the backflip as part of their short program.[6]
The top sixteen highest scoring teams performed their free skates on 16 February.[3] The free skate could last no more than 4 minutes,[16] and had to include the following: three pair lifts, of which one had to be a twist lift; two different throw jumps; one solo jump; one jump combination or sequence; one pair spin combination; one death spiral; and a choreographic sequence.[18]
All of the technical elements in any figure skating performance–such as jumps and spins–were assigned a predetermined base point value and were then scored by a panel of nine judges on a scale from -5 to 5 based on their quality of execution.[19] The judging panel's Grade of Execution (GOE) was determined by calculating the trimmed mean (that is, the average after deleting the highest and lowest scores), and this GOE was added to the base value to come up with the final score for each element. The panel's scores for all elements were added together to generate a total elements score.[20] At the same time, judges evaluated each performance based on three program components–skating skills, presentation, and composition–and assigned a score from .25 to 10 in .25 point increments.[21] The judging panel's final score for each program component was also determined by calculating the trimmed mean. Those scores were then multiplied by the factor shown on the following chart; the results were added together to generate a total program component score.[22]
Deductions were applied for certain violations like time infractions, stops and restarts, or falls.[24] The total elements score and total program component score were added together, minus any deductions, to generate a final performance score for each skater.[25]
After finishing the short program in fifth place, Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan finished in first place, setting a new world record score in the free skate and winning Japan's first ever Olympic medal in pair skating.[27] "We still can't believe that this has happened after yesterday's performance [in the short program]," Kihara said. "We were quite disappointed with what happened, but we're really happy with how we skated today. It's a little bit of a disbelief that we were able to get a medal for Japan in pair skating for the first time ever."[28]
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