Canadian ice dancersTessa Virtue andScott Moir are the only figure skaters to win five Olympic medals (three gold medals and two silver medals). Swedish figure skaterGillis Grafström and Russian figure skaterEvgeni Plushenko have each won four medals. The only skaters with three consecutive titles are Grafström in men's singles,Sonja Henie for Norway in women's singles, andIrina Rodnina from the Soviet Union in pair skating. American Nathan Chen, and Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, are the only skaters to win two gold medals in the same Olympics.
Men'sspecial figures was only included in one Olympic Games before being discontinued. The sole winner of the event was RussianNikolai Panin, who gave his country its first ever Olympic gold medal.[27]
At the 1964 Olympics,Marika Kilius andHans-Jürgen Bäumler of Germany,Debbi Wilkes andGuy Revell of Canada, andVivian Joseph andRonald Joseph of the United States placed second, third, and fourth, respectively. Two years later, Kilius and Bäumler's results were invalidated because the pair had signed a professional contract before the Olympics. The silver medals were re-allocated to Wilkes and Revell and the bronze medals to Joseph and Joseph. However, in 1987, the German team was re-awarded their silver medals after an appeal. In November 2014, theInternational Olympic Committee clarified that both the German and Canadian teams were the silver medalists, and the U.S. team were the bronze medalists.[55][56]
At the 2002 Olympics, acontroversy in the pairs competition culminated in the French judge's scores being thrown out and the Canadian team ofJamie Salé andDavid Pelletier being awarded gold medals.[57] Additionally, the Russian team ofElena Berezhnaya andAnton Sikharulidze were allowed to keep their medals despite the allegations of vote swapping and buying of votes of the French judge. Judges from Russia, China, Poland, Ukraine, and France had placed the Russians first; judges from the United States, Canada, Germany, and Japan gave the nod to the Canadians. A scheme had been hatched whereby the French pairs judge had agreed to award the gold medal to the Russian team, while the Russian ice dance judge was to award the gold medal to the French ice dance team. TheInternational Skating Union announced a day after the competition that it would conduct an "internal assessment" into the judging decision.[58]Marie-Reine Le Gougne, the French judge implicated in collusion, andDidier Gailhaguet, president of theFrench Federation of Ice Sports, were found guilty of misconduct and were suspended for three years and barred from officiating at the2006 Winter Olympics.[59]
The team event is the newest Olympic figure skating event, first contested in the2014 Games. It combines the fourOlympic figure skating disciplines (men's singles, women's singles, pairs, and ice dance) into a single event; gold is awarded to the team that earns the most placement points.
The results of the 2022 team event were fraught with controversy. The medal ceremony originally scheduled for February 8 was delayed over what International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesperson Mark Adams described as a situation that required "legal consultation" with the International Skating Union.[100] Several media outlets reported that the issue was over a positive test from December 2021 that showed the presence oftrimetazidine in a sample given byKamila Valieva from theRussian Olympic Committee (ROC),[101][102] which was officially confirmed on February 11. TheRussian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), under suspension from theWorld Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) since 2015[103] for its years of serving solely to hide the positive doping results of Russian athletes,[104][105] cleared Valieva on February 9, a day after the December test results were released and two months after the test. The IOC, WADA, and the ISU appealed the RUSADA's decision.[106]
On February 14, theCourt of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that Valieva be allowed to compete in theindividual women's event, on grounds that preventing her from competing "would cause her irreparable harm in the circumstances",[107] though her gold medal in the team event was still under consideration. The favorable decision from the Court was made in part due to her age, as minor athletes were subject to different rules than adult athletes.[107][108] The IOC announced that the medal ceremony would not take place until the investigation was over and there was a concrete decision of whether to strip Russia of their medals.[109]
On January 29, 2024, the CAS disqualified Valieva for four years retroactive to 25 December 2021 for the positive test for trimetazidine, which they ruled constituted an anti-doping rule violation.[110] On 30 January 2024, the ISU, among other actions, subtracted Valieva's points from Russia's score without changing any other scores, and re-allocated the medals in the figure skating team event, upgrading the United States and Japan to gold and silver, respectively, while downgrading Russia to bronze.[111] The American and Japanese teams ultimately received their medals at a ceremony which took place on 7 August 2024 at theJardins du Trocadéro during the2024 Summer Olympics inParis.[112]
Ice dancersTessa Virtue andScott Moir are the most decorated Olympic figure skaters in history with a total of five medals.Ice dancersMarina Klimova andSergei Ponomarenko won a bronze medal in 1984, improved to a silver in 1988, and capped their Olympic appearances with a gold in 1992.Russian ice dancersOksana Grishuk andEvgeny Platov won the 1994 and 1998 Olympic titles.
^Irina Rodnina won three medals in pair skating with two different partners: a gold medal in 1972 withAlexei Ulanov and two gold medals in 1976 and 1980 withAlexander Zaitsev.
^Guillaume Cizeron won three medals in ice dance with two different partners: a silver medal in 2018 and a gold medal in 2022 withGabriella Papadakis and a gold medal in 2026 withLaurence Fournier Beaudry.
^Artur Dmitriev won three medals in pair skating with two different partners: a gold medal in 1992 and a silver medal in 1994 withNatalia Mishkutenok and a gold medal in 1998 withOksana Kazakova.
^Nikita Katsalapov won four medals with two different partners. In 2014, he won a gold medal in the team event and a bronze medal in ice dance withElena Ilinykh. In 2022, he won a silver medal in ice dance and a bronze medal in the team event withVictoria Sinitsina.
^Aljona Savchenko won three medals in pair skating with two different partners: two bronze medals in 2010 and 2014 withRobin Szolkowy and a gold medal in 2018 withBruno Massot.
SwedishGillis Grafström is a three-time Olympic figure skating gold medalist in the men's singles event.
The only skaters with three consecutive titles areGillis Grafström in men's singles,Sonja Henie in women's singles, andIrina Rodnina in pairs. The most consecutive titles in ice dance is two, which has only been achieved byOksana Grishuk andEvgeny Platov. In addition, one women's singles skater, three men's singles skaters, and five pair skaters have earned consecutive titles. Two ice dancers and three pair skaters have earned non-consecutive titles.
Six skaters have won Olympic gold medals in multiple events.Evgeni Plushenko won gold in men's singles in 2006 and team event gold in 2014.Tatiana Volosozhar andMaxim Trankov were the first skaters to win multiple events at a single Olympics, winning in both pairs and the team event.Tessa Virtue andScott Moir matched this feat four years later, earning golds in ice dance and the team event.Nathan Chen won gold in both men's singles and the team event in 2022.
^abIrina Rodnina won three gold medals in pair skating with two different partners: one in 1972 withAlexei Ulanov and one each in 1976 and 1980 withAlexander Zaitsev.
^Artur Dmitriev won two gold medals in pair skating with two different partners: one in 1992 withNatalia Mishkutenok and one in 1998 withOksana Kazakova.
Karl Schäfer won two Olympic gold medals in the men's competition in the 1930s.Yuzuru Hanyu is one of only two skaters to win two gold medals in the men's competition afterWorld War II.
NorwegianSonja Henie won three consecutive gold medals in the women's individual event (1928–1936).Katarina Witt from East Germany won the 1988 women's singles gold medal, becoming the second female figure skater in history to win back-to-back Olympic titles.Yuna Kim of South Korea won the women's singles event in 2010 with world record scores in the short program, free skating, and combined total.
^abIrina Rodnina won three medals in pair skating with two different partners: one gold medal in 1972 withAlexei Ulanov and one gold medal each in 1976 and 1980 withAlexander Zaitsev.
^abArtur Dmitriev won three medals in pair skating with two different partners: one gold medal in 1992 and one silver medal in 1994 withNatalia Mishkutenok and another gold medal in 1998 withOksana Kazakova.
^abAljona Savchenko won three medals in pair skating with two different partners: two bronze medals in 2010 and 2014 withRobin Szolkowy and one gold medal in 2018 withBruno Massot.
^Guillaume Cizeron won three medals in ice dance with two different partners: a silver medal in 2018 and a gold medal in 2022 withGabriella Papadakis and a gold medal in 2026 withLaurence Fournier Beaudry.
^Nikita Katsalapov won two medals in ice dance with two different partners: a bronze medal in 2014 withElena Ilinykh and a silver medal in 2022 withVictoria Sinitsina.
Only three skaters have won Olympic medals in multiplefigure skating disciplines. All other multi-event medalists won medals in their discipline plus the team event (which, while being a separate event, is not considered its own skating discipline).
In 1908,Madge Syers became the first skater to medal in multiple figure skating disciplines at a single Olympics. The only skater to match this feat wasErnst Baier in 1936. The only other skater to medal in multiple disciplines wasBeatrix Loughran who did so at separate Olympics.
No skater has won gold medals in multiple disciplines.
Since figure skating was held during the Summer Olympic Games in 1908 and 1920 before being moved to the Winter Olympic, three skaters won medals in figure skating at both the Summer and Winter Games.
Men's singles skaterGillis Grafström's first gold medal was earned at the 1920 Summer Olympics. His other three medals were won at the 1924–1932 Winter Games. Pair skatersLudowika Jakobsson andWalter Jakobsson also earned gold during the 1920 Summer Olympics. They later won medals at the 1924 Winter Games.
^Windhausen, John D. (1976)."Russia's First Olympic Victor"(PDF).Journal of Sport History.3 (1). North American Society for Sport History:35–44. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on August 7, 2010. RetrievedJuly 15, 2009.
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