US skaters swept ice dance championships. Can they do it again at the Winter Olympics?

MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — Team USA’s ice dancers were riding a high heading into their Winter Olympics performance on Monday, and it was clear during their first rhythm dance competition.

American skaters Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik set the stage with a magnificent performance, with the judges awarding them an 83.53 score total. 

The score was a personal best for the pair, and their performance landed them a sixth-place finish in the qualifying round at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. The high score kept both the pair and Team USA in medal contention for the rhythm dance competition once finals are completed on Wednesday.

Headliners Madison Chock and Evan Bates, also from the U.S., closed out Monday’s competition with an 89.27 score and second-place finish. The pair, who married in 2024 after 15 seasons together, have earned three World Champion titles and are hoping to earn an individual Olympic medal at the Games.

Their performace took place not long after teammates Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko scored 78.15 for 11th-place.

Monday’s competition was the qualifier for the finals, with the top 20 skaters moving on to Wednesday’s competition.

The Americans’ competition on Monday followed their sweep of the ice dance competition on the opening day of the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Beijing, less than a month before the Games. The team was led by Zingas and Kolesnik, who scored 79.97 points for their rhythm dance. The performance led to the first U.S. ice dance sweep at the event since 2005.

Typically, very few figure skaters heading to the Winter Games will compete at Four Continents in an Olympic year. But Zingas and Kolesnik were trying to take advantage of one last opportunity on an international stage to sort out the details of their two programs before the Games began.