ST. LOUIS — Heading into the 2026 U.S. figure skating championships, there existed the very real prospect that the United States would be selecting the greatest American skating team to ever compete at the Olympic Games.
Coming out of the national championships, that potential was affirmed. Almost all of the top skaters did their jobs. The team is strong and deep, with medal favorites in four of the five events. The skaters aren’t just leaving the nationals, they are storming out of the place.
Now comes the hard part. In less than four weeks, the Milano Cortina Olympics begin. And there are some significant questions: Can Ilia Malinin continue to dominate the men’s competition and win a second consecutive American Olympic gold medal after Nathan Chen’s victory in 2022?
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The answer is almost certainly yes. Then again, skating is a slippery sport and the pressure on the 21-year-old “Quad God” will be immense. Still, it’s Malinin’s event to lose.
Can the Americans do what they are expected to do and glide to a win in the team event, which kicks off the figure skating competition in Milan? It would be stunning if they did not.
Can ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, seven-time national champions, finally win a medal in the event they have graced with their presence for years? The answer to that is yes, they almost certainly will, either gold or silver.
And the women? The United States has selected its best women’s team in nearly a quarter century, since 2002. But gold, silver and even bronze are not guaranteed in a strong field of competitors from Japan and Russia.
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If things go spectacularly well, the United States has a fighting chance to win four of the five gold medals that will be given out in Italy. The previous best performances for the Americans at the Olympics? Two golds each, all the way back at the 1956 and again at the 1960 Olympics (where there were only three Olympic figure skating events).
To be in this position, U.S. skaters had to come in on top of their game at the national championships, and by and large, they did.
“This past week has been American skating at its best,” U.S. Figure Skating CEO Matt Farrell said after everything ended Sunday afternoon.
Nothing was more impressive than the way the top U.S. women skated. In the short program and again in the long, one after another performed flawlessly. They were talented and they were resilient. And they sent a message that the three-member U.S. women’s skating team truly is a team, not just a collection of individuals, which could play quite well in the pressure cooker of the Olympics.
With 26-year-old, three-time national champion Amber Glenn acting as the voice of reason for the group, and reigning world champion and two-time national champion Alysa Liu, 20, and 2023 national champion Isabeau Levito, 18, providing the laughs, they are setting themselves up for a very fun, even somewhat silly, six weeks.
“I think we’re going to enjoy it together off the ice, on the ice, in practices, getting to the village together, trying on all the gear, it’s going to be a blast,” Liu said.
Glenn quoted Liu on their camaraderie, a quality that can be rare even among national teammates in the competitive world of skating. “Something Alysa has been saying is, ‘Why is it so shocking that we’re being friendly, that we’re friends?’”
Two-time Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan, speaking on the USA TODAY podcast Milan Magic, said the U.S. women’s prospects are better because of how close the trio is.
“Like, wow, look out everybody because they are fierce competitors,” Kerrigan said. “And I think some of it is just their camaraderie is incredible. They lift each other up.”
But nothing was more uplifting than the performance of 24-year-old Maxim Naumov, who lost his parents in the mid-air collision over Washington, D.C., nearly a year ago. After three consecutive fourth-place finishes at the nationals, he skated well enough under intense pressure to move up to third this year and make the U.S. Olympic team, instantly becoming the most emotional story of the Games.
As excruciating as it is to think that he achieved the Olympic dream he and his parents shared without them, he said he knew exactly what they would be thinking:
“They’re saying, we’re proud of you, but the job’s not finished. We’re just getting started.”