February 22, 2018

The second exciting week at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang has had figure skating fans on the edges of their seats. German pairs team Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, Japanese men’s skater Yuzuru Hanyu, and Canadian ice dance team Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir all took gold after tough competitions on the ice. During the contests, United States men’s skater Nathan Chen became the first person to land five clean quadruple jumps (four rotations in mid-air) in a single Olympic program (it would have been six, but Chen’s hand touched the ice for balance after one of the jumps).

Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir perform their short program during the ice dancing competition at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Gangneung Ice Arena in South Korea on Feb. 19, 2018. Credit: © Valery Sharifulin, Getty Images

To break it down, pairs is an event with a male skater and a female skater. They do jumps, spins, and lifts. Ice dance is an event with a male skater and female skater, too. They do challenging patterns, lifts (with restrictions), and spins. Men and women also do solo performances with jumps, spins, and footwork. Each couple or individual performs two programs (performances), one short and one long—also called a “free” program. The points earned in both programs add up to the total score.

Prior to winning gold in the 2018 Winter Olympics, German skater Savchenko had competed in four Olympics (three for Germany, one for Ukraine), but never won gold. In 2014 (after winning bronze at the Sochi Olympics), she paired with French-born Bruno Massot, who became a German citizen to skate with Savchenko. The pair earned medals at two world championships before taking gold in Pyeongchang. It is the third Olympics for Canadian fan favorites Virtue and Moir. They took gold in Vancouver in 2010 and silver at Sochi in 2014. In 2018, Virtue and Moir earned the highest score ever recorded for a short dance program (beating their own record) as well as another record for overall points.

Soohorang (left), the official mascot of the 2018 Winter Olympics, is a white tiger. Bandabi (right), mascot of the Paralympics, is an Asiatic black bear. Credit: © Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

Japanese skaters took first and second in the men’s solo event. In winning gold this year, Yuzuru Hanyu repeated his achievement from the 2014 games, becoming the first men’s back-to-back Olympic champion since Team USA’s Dick Button did it in the 1948 and 1952 winter games. Hanyu’s teammate Shoma Uno took second, and Javier Fernandez earned Spain’s first-ever Olympic figure skating medal by winning bronze. U.S. skater Nathan Chen recovered from a rocky short program to dazzle with quadruple jumps in his long program and finish fifth overall.

The popularity of ice dancing in the United States increased after Meryl Davis and Charlie White became the first Americans to win gold in the event in 2014. In 2018, Team USA’s Maia and Alex Shibutani, a brother-sister duo dubbed the “Shib Sibs,” won bronze behind Canada’s Virtue and Moir and silver medalists Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France. The first Olympic medals in ice dancing were awarded in 1976 at the winter games in Innsbruck, Austria.