2026 Olys Team Event PBP Day 1 - There Is An I(AM) in Team

[slicekw]

The look on Ilia’s face at the end of day one was “Crud I gotta do both segments”

Yeah, Ilia was looking a bit like he was understanding the pressure of all that they have built these past four years. Glad his dad’s with him as usual and hope he settles down.

Alysa looked tighter than she has all season; I hope that she can settle down some for the individuals. I didn’t realize that the women have to wait like 10 days for their comp. No wonder some move out of the village for a week or so!

 

[zigzig]

My day old news thoughts no one cares about:

DANCE

Cho/Ba - ECSTATIC they are in first. They are AWESOME. Hope they can keep the momentum going through the whole Olympics. Visualizing their team and individ wins with all my powers.

FB/C - they were good. This program has never really jelled for me. It feels expected and derivative - I suspect largely because they had to slap it together with salvaged parts from another program late in the game.

Fear/Gib - they were cute, which is their biggest selling point.

Piper/Paul - for some reason their material just always feels a little desperate. I think their strongest program was Wuthering Heights which was so strong because there wasn't any manufactured quirk, just a great display of their skating and sense of character.

Gui/Fab - they looked tight and this program is KRINGE as EVER. will never understand how they arrived at this program AND decided to keep it. I have to commend the judging as I assumed they'd get a bigger home Olympics bump.

Davis/Smo - this probably one of top RD of the season for me. Would have them ahead of the Italians frankly.

PAIRS

Mi/Ki - killed it but I'm worried they're leaving their best SP performance on the team event. PROVE ME WRONG guys.

Met/Ber - love them. find them lowballed in PCS.

Con/Mac - this team doesn't do it for me but I'm glad they could skate well in their home Oly.

Per/Mic - bland but competent

Kam/O - pretty solid. Now go CLEAN in the individual!!!

Sui/Han - hate seeing them like this.

WOMEN

Kaori - brilliant as expected.

Liu - axel looked tight and seemed slow/tentative going into combo but glad she mostly made it.

Lara - good for her! She's my favorite Italian here.

Shin - find her pleasant but boring. She has such a lacadaiscal approach into the 3T of her combo. Needs more attack overall. Her skating just feels timid and underbaked.

Goob - she's lucky to get away with just a q on that lutz.

Schizas - her skating feels so small and anemic but nice that she went clean.

Also, why did they get these commentators for this. Why didn't they get Mark H. These commentators are so MEH. And also, why isn't the scorebox showing levels and WTF is that stupid squiggly map. F- for the feed.

 

[Skate Talker]

... And also, why does Johnny Weir insist on calling Piper & Paul's hair-play "hairy-ography" instead of "hair-ography"? How rude.

 

[skatfan]

Alysa almost missed getting to the arena in time because of JD Vance’s motorcade:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2026/02/06/olympics-team-figure-skating-jd-vance/

 

[peibeck]

Not the British judge dumping Gilles/Poirier into 6th in the RD today?

As Ru Paul would say.... "Shade!"

 

[YukiNieve]

NM

 

[Sylvia]

I found a 2-minute clip from the Team Event Day 1 Press Conference (Masaya Morita spoke for JPN; with Danny O'Shea USA and Sara Conti & Marco Fabbri ITA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaP0Vaj4xUo

 

[VGThuy]

I finally saw the RDs. Biggest highlight was seeing how proud Igor was after Chock/Bates skated. He’s not their coach anymore and hasn’t been for 8 seasons, but they’re still his baby. He’s the one who made them happen. Also, they rocked the program. I don’t mind them being Olympic champions. We’ve had worse.

FB/C were great too. I just think Chock/Bates simply skate like a team that have been competing together for 15 seasons straight without break and adapted to all the rule changes and eras to where the rules reward their style of skating and they know it. They have the oomph and confidence that FB/C can’t have since they’re so new.

Fear/Gibson’s highlight was Belinda Noonan on the international feed trying very hard to be polite about them. It’s funnier than Tracy Wilson trying to be polite about The Offspring during Davis/Smolkin’s. I know they take notes and work very hard and do everything paper that is “good” about performing…. But I’m not a fan. She doesn’t have star quality and their skating skills aren’t amazing enough to overcome that for me. The judges like them, so that’s all that matters.

Gilles/Poirier… this might be their most boring SD/RD of their career. I also think them doing a poorer version of “Vincent” for the FD gave the judges even more incentive to continue the dumpage from last season.

Guignard/Fabbri, my household are still trying to figure out what’s going on with her shirt. My friend Joanna loves BSB so much that she enjoyed them immensely. Peggy Noonan liked them too.

The Korean team are performers.

Davis/Smolkin tried.

I don’t remember Wang/Liu being as low quality as they were this night.

 

[VGThuy]

As for pairs, Miura/Kihara all day every day. I’m a huge fan of Metelkina/Berulava. Continue/Macii were enjoyable.

Props to the women. All of them skated well. Major props to Schild for doing Stairway to Heaven and doing it well. Schizas skated inspired. Kurakova melted my heart. Gubanova rocks. Shin brought back the elegance. Gutmann skated so well. Kaori has the right vehicle and I loved every moment watching her. That said… Liu is everything… that entire program was so gorgeous that I wanted to thank her for letting me watch it.