The 2026 Olympic Games are well underway, and as a former figure skater, I've been tuning in to keep tabs on my favorite athletes. (Ilia Malinin as the men's champion in 2030?) Last night, the pairs skaters took the ice for both their short and free programs, with a fantastic and dramatic upset, complete with tears.
Japanese Pairs Skaters Break Down Crying After Going from 5th Place to Olympic Gold
Talk about a comeback
Published Feb 17, 2026
•4:37pm
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Germany led after the short program, followed by Georgia and Canada. US teams Ellie Kam/Danny O'Shea and Emily Chan/Spencer Akira Howe were in seventh and ninth place, respectively. Surprisingly, Japan's Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara—the two-time World Champions, Four Continents and Grand Prix winners, which are all major events—were sitting in fifth after a wobbly showing.
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But the free skate? The 2025 World Champions proved that they could work miracles under pressure. The pair skated cleanly to a medley from Gladiator—no small feat in a discipline where you can often see the female athletes holding on for dear life after a particularly tricky element—and promptly broke down in tears when the music finished. Miura and Kihara embraced each other as they sank down onto their knees as the crowd roared; the tears dissolved into screams of disbelief in the kiss-and-cry (the place where athletes await their scores) as they realized the gold medal was theirs. Talk about a comeback in a sport where winners are sometimes determined by tenths of a point.
With a little under a week to go before the Games' end, I'm now turning my attention to the ladies' singles. The stakes are high—the last American woman to medal at the Olympics was Sasha Cohen in 2006, where she placed second. The short program takes place today, with the free skate scheduled for February 19. Will Alyssa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito end the medal drought? My fingers are crossed.
