MILAN — Madison Chock and Evan Bates’ teammates say the U.S. ice dance pair are their champions.
The husband-and-wife duo turned in a season-best free skate on Wednesday at the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will likely be the couple’s fourth and final Games, but Chock and Bates fell 1.43 points short of gold-medal winners Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron of France.
Fellow American pair Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, who finished fifth in the ice dance competition, embraced their veteran compatriots after Chock and Bates finished their matador-and-bull themed free skate.
‘They’ve had an amazing career and I mean for the last three seasons, they’ve demonstrated technical proficiency, artistic excellence,’ Zingas said. ‘I’m in awe of her all the time, and I think they skated fabulously today. It’s disappointing to me that they didn’t get the gold for me.’
Zingas added, ‘If it was my gold to give, I’d give it to them … I thought they were amazing in both segments of this competition. And I’ll always support them.’
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Zingas is one of several U.S. figure skaters, both past and present, speaking out in support of Chock and Bates.
Under a Team USA Instagram post of Chock and Bates, fellow American ice dance duo Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko each individually called the veteran couple ‘my champions.’
Ponomarenko, who finished in 11th place in the ice dance event alongside Carreira, added ‘forever and always.’
American pairs skater Ellie Kam, who won gold alongside Chock and Bates in the team event earlier this week, described her teammates as ‘truly gold medalists inside and out.’
Olympic gold-medalist Evan Lysaceck, whose gold-medal win at the 2010 Vancouver Games ended USA’s 22-year drought in the men’s singles event, said Chock and Bates ‘are my golden couple.’
‘America’s golden couple,’ Lysaceck added. ‘We love you and you have made us so proud. You also win gold for most beautiful couple!’
Chock called their silver-medal ‘bittersweet,’ but noted she wouldn’t change a thing.
‘It was our gold medal performance. It was the best that we could skate,’ Bates added. ‘It was a personal best score. It was a fourth performance over six days. It took a lot of mental strength and discipline to be locked in and to continue to go out and skate well and we did everything that we could.’
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