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MILAN — There will be other pairs in Milan who score higher than the Netherlands’ Daria Danilova and Michel Tsiba, other pairs who pull off more complex routines, other pairs who will take home medals. But it’s pretty safe to say there is no other pair having quite as much fun in Milan as the Dutch-by-way-of-Russia duo. 

That’s what happens when you make it to the Olympics even after your own country says you can’t go. 

Danilova and Tsiba were among the first pairs to skate in the short-form program on Sunday night. By the end of the evening, the German duo of Minerva FabienneHase and Nikita Volodin posted the short program’s highest score. Two American duos finished the night in the top 10: Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea in 7th, and Emily Chan and Spencer Howe in 9th. But no one had a better time on the ice than the Dutch duo, the only figure skaters from the Netherlands at the Olympics, and the first pair from their home country ever to reach the Games. 

Danilova, who is Russian, began skating with Tsiba, who is Dutch, in 2018. They found immediate success, medaling in four straight Dutch championships from 2020 to 2023 — two gold, two silver. They enjoyed a series of strong worldwide finishes leading up to the 2025 World Championships in Boston, where they finished 15th, good enough to qualify, in the eyes of the International Skating Union, for the Milan Olympics. 

And then everything went sideways for the pair. 

In the eyes of the Dutch Olympic committee, just “good enough” to make the Olympics isn’t good enough. If you’re going to go to the Olympics wearing Dutch orange, you’d better be good enough to win, not just show up. That’s the directive of the Nederlands Olympisch Comité*Nederlandse Sport Federatie, abbreviated NOC*NSF, and it’s codified in their performance requirements for athletes seeking to attend the Olympics as members of the Netherlands. 

“The ambition of NOC*NSF and the sports federations is to be among the top ten elite sports nations in the world,” the federation says. This is achieved by winning as many medals as possible in as many different sports as possible at the Olympic Games.” 

In order to hit those lofty marks, NOC*NSF says, “an elite athlete must have demonstrated the potential to finish in the top eight at the Olympic Games.” In practice, that means even if an athlete qualifies for the Olympics based on an international governing body’s standards, NOC*NSF can block the athlete from attending if the athlete hasn’t met Dutch standards. 

They’re serious. In 2024, NOC*NSF forbade three Dutch golfers — Joost Luiten, Darius Van Driel and Dewi Weber — from participating in the Paris Olympics, the second straight Olympics that the Netherlands had blocked certain golfers from playing. The International Golf Federation attempted to intervene on the players’ behalf, to no avail. 

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In Danilova and Tsiba’s case, NOC*NSF determined that a 14th-place finish in the worlds would satisfy their expectations — one place higher than they’d finished. The federation gave the pair two more opportunities over the course of 2025 to reach the designated Dutch points benchmark, but they couldn’t do so. 

The Royal Dutch Skating Federation (KNSB) appealed to NOC*NSF, arguing that the pair’s 14th-place world ranking, combined with their long string of demonstrated excellence, was enough to warrant an Olympic berth. A Change.org petition organized by fans sought the same reconsideration. 

Tsiba and Danilova, meanwhile, rode the “emotional rollercoaster,” in Tsiba’s words, between exultation and heartbreak. 

“I remember when I was just driving, and I'm happy trying to train, and I think all of a sudden, ‘Olympic Games,’ and I just start crying out of the blue,” Tsiba said. “I'm cooking, I'm with my music on, listening to, I don't know, Eminem or something. And then I think about the Olympic Games, and I'm starting to cry because it's like a knife in your heart, you know?”

Finally, three days before Christmas, they received the greatest present of all: approval to attend the Games after all. 

“It's rare that a request to use discretionary powers is approved,” André Cats, director of elite sports at NOC*NSF, said in December. “There have to be truly exceptional reasons. After thoroughly examining the situation, we're convinced this is the case, and that's why we've made this exceptional decision.”

With their Olympic future assured, and their pairs skate short program date set for more than a week after the Opening Ceremony, Danilova and Tsiba enjoyed every bit of their Olympic experience. They attended the Opening Ceremony and stayed so long that they were the last Dutch athletes still in the stadium. They visited the pin-trading hub in Milan. They reveled in the glory of the Olympic village. 

“One of the best skaters in the Netherlands, she guided us a little bit and she was like, ‘OK, we're making a plan for you guys,’” Tsiba said. “Because you skate quite late at an event, you come here, first two days you're a tourist … She said that when she went to the Games [for the first time], she was so much in her bubble that afterwards she was like, ‘I didn't enjoy anything.’”

And once they finally reached the ice, how did Danilova and Tsiba perform, given the chance? Well … they had fun, at least. They cycled through a graceful routine set to Raury’s “Take Back the Power,” and when it was done, they embraced and kissed at center ice. They finished 17th out of 19 pairs, missing out on qualifying for the free skate by 0.58 points. But they smiled throughout, and they spent a good long time after their skate laughing with several assembled media members. 

“All the things that happened within the season are behind us,” Tsiba said, “and we got to have a fresh new start. So that's amazing, yeah.”

They may have lost at the Olympics, but they made sure they didn’t lose the party. 

MILAN — Madison Chock and Evan Bates will remain silver medalist ice dancers at the Milan Olympics. U.S. Figure Skating did not appeal the controversial judging that awarded their French competitors the gold medal in last week’s ice dance event. 

Last Wednesday, Chock and Bates, who are the reigning world and national champions in ice dance, performed an outstanding free skate routine that put them at the top of the medal leaderboard … right up until France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron topped them and skated away with the gold medal.

The American duo were visibly devastated after the medal ceremony, with Chock calling it “bittersweet” to come so far and fall short of gold. The next day, Chock called for “transparent judging” on CBS News. “I think it's also important for the skaters, that the judges be vetted and reviewed to make sure that they are also putting out their best performance,” she added, “because there's a lot on the line for the skaters when they're out there giving it their all, and we deserve to have the judges also giving us their all and for it to be a fair and even playing field.”

A deeper examination of the skating scores indicated that while bias existed all up and down the judges’ panel, the French judge favored Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron by a greater degree than any other judge’s bias in other directions. 

However, the International Skating Union contended there was no malfeasance at work. “It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judges in any panel and a number of mechanisms are used to mitigate these variations,” the governing body said in a statement. “The ISU has full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”

U.S. Figure Skating had 24 hours to appeal the result, but opted not to do so. “There has been a lot of thoughtful, and at times emotional, discussion about the ice dance competition in Milan,” USFS CEO Matt Farrell told USA Today Sports in a statement. “Working together with Madi and Evan after the Games, we will have thoughtful and intentional discussions about the best way to support them and the future of the sport. For now, we plan to join them in supporting the success of U.S. Figure Skating in Milan.”

The pairs and women’s events remain to be skated in Milan. Team USA already has a team gold medal, won in part by Chock and Bates.

MILAN — Every four years, we casual Americans become instant experts in a whole array of winter Olympic sports. We decide we know curling strategy, we debate skiers’ lines down precipitous slopes, we instantly judge snowboarders on moves that would leave us in traction. And man, do we have thoughts on figure skating judges. 

Here’s the thing, though: While the Olympians and aficionados can safely ignore pretty much all of our two weeks’ worth of blather, the opinions on figure skating judging stick.

Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates skated the routine of their lives on Wednesday night in figure skating’s ice dance event … only to watch in horror and heartbreak as judges controversially deemed the routine of France’s  Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron a more worthy one. Chock and Bates ended up with a silver medal — a titanic achievement, of course, but a “bittersweet” one, in Chock’s words, when you think you ought to have won gold. 

On CBS News, Chock called for “transparent judging” to help viewers understand what’s happening. “I think it's also important for the skaters, that the judges be vetted and reviewed to make sure that they are also putting out their best performance,” she added, “because there's a lot on the line for the skaters when they're out there giving it their all, and we deserve to have the judges also giving us their all and for it to be a fair and even playing field.”

The figure skating establishment appears to be shrugging this off as just one of them skating deals, yet another in a long line of what-are-you-gonna-do judging frustrations. It’s not as egregious as the Salt Lake City skating scandal of 2002, when a French judge conceded that she’d been pressured to favor a Russian pairs duo that eventually won gold … right? 

“It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judges in any panel and a number of mechanisms are used to mitigate these variations,” the International Skating Union said in a statement. “The ISU has full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”

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But the fire continues to smolder outside of figure skating’s traditional territory, and the casual fans who are getting a close look at this are asking, rightfully: Just what the heck is going on with the judging in figure skating?

Granted, Americans come into this with no small anti-judge bias. Judging as a means of determining a victor just doesn’t sit well with most American viewers, whether it’s gymnastics, figure skating or the Westminster Dog Show. 

At the risk of going full Daytona 500, in America, we don’t care much for ties, and we don’t dig on judged sports. If a tie is like kissing your sister, a judgment loss is like kissing a dog, and not even your dog. We like to settle our sporting events on the court, on the field, on the ice … and we don’t like our sports left in the hands of a faceless cabal passing irrevocable judgment. 

(Yes, we have instant replay. But we don’t decide the entire Super Bowl on it.) 

The issue with judging, of course, is that it’s done by judges — flawed, biased, persuadable, even manipulable human judges. The ISU has attempted a range of fixes in the wake of the 2002 scandal, from eliminating the highly imperfect and inconsistent “6.0” system to making judges’ names public to increase transparency. The ISU Judging System drills down to an element-by-element level, eliminating outliers and averaging scores, 

For the most part, the changes work, but if critics want ammunition, well … it’s there if you look at the numbers. Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron finished with 225.82 to Chock and Bates’ 224.39, a difference of 1.43 points. However, in the free dance program, the French duo totaled 135.64, while the Americans finished with 134.67. Again, extremely close, extremely debatable. But keep digging. 

In scores documented by SkatingScores on Twitter, five of nine judges scored the USA duo higher than the French one in free dance. Eight of nine judges gave Chock and Bates at least 130.97 points. The lowest score for the Americans? A 129.74 … from the French judge. Hmmm. 

Now, consider the French scores. All extremely strong, yes, but the strongest score? A stunning 137.45, again from the French judge. HMMMM. 

Put another way: France’s Jézabel Dabois ranked the United States 7.71 points worse than the French duo. This isn’t quite an Indiana-over-Oregon-level differential, but it’s still pretty substantial. Add to that the fact that Spain actually ranked the United States’ routine third, behind France and bronze medal winner Canada, and you can see why many U.S. fans are saying certain judges are full of merde. 

For another perspective, though, check out this data visualization by Sportico’s Lev Akabas:

The immediate point is that the French judge absolutely jobbed the Americans, yes. This sure looks like sandbagging to bring down the Americans’ overall score and help the French team to the gold. Statistically speaking, even if many of the French judge’s individual element scores were thrown out — and they were — there’s still the potential for an artificial manipulation of the final score. And when you’re talking tenths and hundredths of a point, every score matters. 

But the larger point of this graph is equally relevant — bias is rampant across national borders. So much so that SkatingScores’ “Bias-O-Meter” shows that virtually every judge showed bias toward the skaters from their home countries. (Aside: The fact that a “Bias-O-Meter” even exists, and is statistically valid, shows exactly how gnarled the judging situation in figure skating is.) 

What’s the answer? Perhaps AI can handle this, assuming it doesn’t hallucinate a third skater on the ice. Perhaps a more rigid form of judge recusal — kicking out judges when a skater from their home nation is on the ice, for instance, would be a solid start. Or, hell, just go to a worldwide voting system on the phone. No way that could be manipulated, right? 

The maddening aspect of all of this is that it’s welling up just as skating is enjoying a resurgence in the United States. Between the two-time gold medal-winning team, the Quad God and the Big Three, America’s Olympic figure skating looks as good as it has in decades. This isn’t the time for the sport to get mired in familiar, avoidable controversies. 

Viewers deserve better. Chock and Bates deserved better. And figure skating as a sport deserves better. That’s not a judgment, that’s straight fact.

MILAN — This time last year, the most decorated alpine skier in history was trying to force herself to ski again. Mikaela Shiffrin was attempting to return to the slalom and giant slalom races, and found herself unable to do what she’d been doing all her life.  

“I could barely even finish a run,” she recalled recently, “not because of crashing, but because when I told my body to go, it just wouldn’t.” 

Just a few months before, in November 2024, she was on her second run in Killington, Vermont, and on the cusp of capturing her 100th World Cup victory. No other alpine skier, male or female, has more than 86, and here was Shiffrin, about to break into triple digits. 

But she clipped a gate midway through her run, setting off a crash that sent her pinwheeling into the slope’s netting. She doubled over in agony, unable to ward off the pain radiating through her abdomen. 

“It’s honestly kind of difficult to explain what the pain felt like,” she later wrote in The Players Tribune. “But the closest I can get would probably be, it was like … not only was there a knife stabbing me, but the knife was actually still inside of me.”

She was extricated from the slope by sled, and later examinations revealed she had suffered significant abdominal injury, nearly puncturing her colon. But while her body healed, her mind continued to struggle. The diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder from the crash reverberated for months afterward as she attempted to manage the panic and fear that accompanied her return to the slopes.  

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“Everybody needs to understand with these struggles that they don't work linearly,” Shiffrin recently said. “They don't work in the way you think they're going to, or expect they're going to. … Time helps. Exposure helps. It doesn’t work to just back away from your fears, but it works to take them on in bite-sized pieces.” 

Killington isn’t the only slope that holds ghosts for Shiffrin. There’s also the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre, host of the alpine events for Beijing’s 2022 Olympics. Shiffrin went into the 2022 Games a two-time gold medalist, victorious both at Sochi (slalom) and Pyeongchang (giant slalom). But at Beijing, she failed to even finish in three of her six events, her best individual finish a 9th in Super G. 

“I don't want Beijing to be the reason that I'm scared of the Olympics. And for the past few years, it has been a little bit,” Shiffrin told Olympics.com last fall. “When Cortina comes along, we’ll just take it day by day, take it as it comes.”

She arrived at the Milan Cortina Games with as much momentum as she’s had in years. She finally managed that 100th World Cup victory in February, and since then she’s added seven more, including a victory in slalom in the Czech Republic just days before the Olympics’ Opening Ceremony. That combined success, that validation of her belief in herself, has given her a new, more optimistic mindset heading into the Games. 

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“Especially after the past two seasons, with battling a couple different pretty serious injuries, I've had two fairly incomplete seasons,” Shiffrin said recently. “So, to be at this point right now … heading into the Olympics, but also from the perspective of just having a really successful World Cup season, I'm really excited about that.”

But then came the team combined ski on Feb. 10 where Shiffrin not only lost the lead Breezy Johnson staked her in the downhill but finished 15th overall in her slalom run — nearly a second behind first place. A mediocre ski from Shiffrin would have notched her and Johnson gold. Instead they dropped all the way off the podium to fourth place.

How will she rebound from the rocky start?

She has a few days, as the giant slalom is Sunday. And she also has the lessons of four years ago to fall back on.

“The one thing you can expect from the Olympics is that things are just not really going to go according to your plan,” Shiffrin said. “So you've got to roll with the punches and have a really good open mind.”