Emilea Zingas, Vadym Kolesnik eager to carry on U.S. ice dance tradition

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Emilea Zingas, Vadym Kolesnik eager to carry on U.S. ice dance tradition

Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik went into the Olympics with no expectations.

Barely a month later, as Zingas and Kolesnik ready to compete in their first World Championships together this week in Prague, they have become the standard bearer for U.S. ice dancing, which over the past 22 seasons has flown its flag in awards ceremonies at six straight Olympics and 19 of the last 21 worlds.

This has happened so fast for Zingas and Kolesnik.

The 2026 Winter Games in Milan were the first global championship appearance for them as a couple (Zingas also finished 36th in singles at 2021 Worlds for Cyprus).

She had taken up ice dance only four years ago after having spent more than a decade in singles. All the Olympic attention and pressure was on their U.S. teammates, three-time reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

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Madison Chock, Evan Bates 'wouldn't change anything' after ice dance silver

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Madison Chock, Evan Bates 'wouldn't change anything' after ice dance silver

They had occupied the ice dance penthouse for so much of the past four seasons, including the last three World Championships, that Madison Chock and Evan Bates might as well have been declared owners of the place.

Yet when they were ready to throw a housewarming celebration in front of the world, Chock and Bates were evicted by a couple of new kids on the block, French team Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, whom they know as friends and train with at the same rink in Montreal.

So, the apparent end of the U.S. ice dancers’ stellar career did not include the individual Olympic gold medal that had been their goal since deciding they would try for a fourth Winter Games as competitive partners and a first as husband and wife.

Chock and Bates claimed silver after Wednesday’s free dance, adding an individual medal to the golds they won in the team event at both this Olympics and the last. They were a frustrated fourth in the 2022 ice dance event.

“It’s definitely a little bittersweet, because we are so, so happy with how we performed this week,” Chock said, her voice cracking as she continued the thought.

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Madison Chock, Evan Bates shuck weight of past ice dance glories to seek more

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Madison Chock, Evan Bates shuck weight of past ice dance glories to seek more

BOSTON — When the triumphs pile up, when you have been atop the field in your sport for more than two seasons, when you have been a medalist in national and world championships from your early 20s to your 30s, it is easy to become happy with what you have already accomplished in 14 seasons as competitors.

For those who become timeless champions, though, the Sisyphean but still fulfilling quest for perfection always endures.

So it is for U.S. ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who came into the 2025 World Championships with an Olympic gold medal, six national titles and five world medals, the last two of them gold.

“Yes, we’ve accumulated some titles along the way, but it still feels like we’re still striving for excellence and looking for ways to improve ourselves,” Chock said in a recent interview.

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At figure skating worlds, a U.S.-Canada ice dance story adds a chapter

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At figure skating worlds, a U.S.-Canada ice dance story adds a chapter

The two couples have both been in the same ice dance universe for 14 seasons, with each moving at a different trajectory and speed toward the shiny medals that once seemed distant.

One team, Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, got there faster and collected more medals of all colors and more of the most glittering.

Yet as they and rivals Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada home in on the biggest and brightest medal of all, an Olympic gold, the gap between the two couples has narrowed to the point that who stands on the top step of the podium at the 2026 Winter Games is almost impossible to predict.

Even the results of the 2025 World Championships that began Wednesday in Boston likely will not be enough to make one couple the decisive favorite next year in Milan, Italy.

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