2025-26 U.S. Ice Dance News, Updates & Discussion - Backstreet Boys & Spice Girls

[princeton123]

Thinking you can mount a comeback in an Olympic year when you haven't skated competitively in seven years and be taken seriously is either very misguided or very arrogant. Probably both

 

[Willin]

Listen, you're defending a team that hasn't shown up yet. A team that hasn't competed in 7.5 years. Maybe they'll be on the Trialeti Trophy entries next week and if they are, great. But if they aren't... Well, I call as much bullshit on this "comeback" as I'll call bullshit on Sui/Han's "comeback" - that's another team (in a different discipline) that hasn't shown up at anything yet.

To be fair to Sui/Han in this - Sui did want to come back with another partner. Chinese fed told her no, she could only come back if Han came back. So they tried and Han is indeed too injured to compete. So the circumstances of their comeback is completely different.

As far as the ShibSibs, I still don't get the "why" of this comeback. It's probably not entirely for the media attention like I thought initially given they're not posting on social media - although given their endorsement deal and the media attention there may be a component of that.

But this adds to the question of "why":

Thinking you can mount a comeback in an Olympic year when you haven't skated competitively in seven years and be taken seriously is either very misguided or very arrogant. Probably both

Not even not skated competitively - only skated in limited shows and given limited seminars (which I've seen 70+ year old coaches teach seminars, so that's not a sign you're training). It's not like some of the '90s or '00s comebacks where people had been on the pro circuit for years and were just training and competing in a less strenuous manner. We have no idea if they even skated at all for a good chunk of that. Add to that that the rules have changed - and not in any favorable manner to the ShibSibs - and it just seems very misguided.

Unless the why is not going to the Olympics. I think people (including myself) would take this better if the "why" didn't seem so explicitly Olympics or get back to prior form - like wanting to skate in shows and using competitions for promo or just try to get back in shape for fun. There's nothing wrong with wanting to get back into a hobby. Midori Ito's still at it competitively, but many former competitive skaters do shows well into their 50s.

 

[ice coverage]

FWIW, Zingas/Kolesnik have been added to the "National Team" listings on the USFS Leave Your Mark 2026 site (which has had some format changes, BTW).
I happened to notice this update just today (after not looking at the site for many weeks), and I guess their inclusion is better late than never.

Z/K now appear as the seventh dance partnership, along with the original six.
(Listings for the other disciplines are unchanged.)

National Team | Leaveyourmark2026

www.leaveyourmark2026.com