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Team USA is sending one of its strongest figure-skating squads ever to Milano Cortina.
The U.S. Olympic Trials for figure skating are always a nail-biting pressure cooker, and version 2026 was no exception. Three spots each were available in the women’s, men’s, and ice-dance events, and two spots for the pairs event. The deep fields led to tough competition at the U.S. national championships in St. Louis, which double as the Olympic Trials.
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For the first time, U.S. figure skaters could make history by winning medals in four of the five skating events—in the team, men’s, women’s, and ice dance disciplines. And at least three of those medals could be gold.
The number of athletes a country can send to the Olympics depends on how well skaters finish in the previous year’s world figure-skating championships, and the U.S. boasts three of them. Alysa Liu is the reigning women’s world champion, and her teammates Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn finished fourth and fifth, enough to send the maximum of three athletes in the women’s event. Ilia Malinin, called “the quad god” for his mastery of multiple quadruple jumps, is the men’s world champion, and his teammate Jason Brown’s 8th place finish together also gave the U.S. men the maximum three athletes for Milan. Madison Chock and Evan Bates are the current world champions in ice dance, and their teammates’ fifth and ninth place finishes allowed the U.S. to send three teams in that event. The U.S. pairs finished sixth and seventh at the world championships, which earned the U.S. two spots in that event at the Olympics. And Team USA will be one of 10 countries competing in the team event that kicks off the skating competitions in Milan.
Here are the athletes who could make U.S. skating history in February.
WOMEN
The U.S. women are currently among the best female skaters in the world; among them they earned six U.S. titles and two world medals. But that doesn’t mean…
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