As Chock explained her one clear mistake in the rhythm dance portion of the competition — and after Bates offered assurance that their skate wasn’t “that bad, obviously” — a television screen behind her showed fellow Americans Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue waiting to hear their score. Chock glanced back as the new standings appeared on the screen. Hubbell and Donohue’s mark of 87.13 overtook Chock and Bates for third place heading into Monday’s free dance.
These duos, who have for years battled for ice dancing supremacy in the United States, each have medal potential in Beijing. But there might not be room on the podium for both.
“It’s certainly familiar territory for us,” Chock said. “This is a rivalry that we’ve had for the past 11 years, so it feels like it’s always felt. They’re strong competitors, as are we. It’s just whoever performs best on the day.”
On Friday, that was Hubbell and Donohue, a tandem that won the silver medal at the most recent world championships but has never won an individual medal at the Olympics. They have a three-point cushion over Chock and Bates (84.14) with one day of competition remaining.
France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who are four-time world champions, had the top mark of the evening with a 90.83. The 2018 Olympic silver medalists delivered a mesmerizing performance, combining fluidity with occasional sharpness as they skated perfectly in sync wearing matching burgundy.
The Russian Olympic Committee’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, the reigning world champions, also shined with an 88.85. Those strong performances left the top Americans fighting for the third position. Barring mistakes from the French and Russian duos, that battle for third could repeat itself in the free dance but with other pairs in the mix, too. Chock and Bates only have a slim edge over pairs from the ROC (Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin with a 84.09), Canada (Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier with a 83.52) and Italy (Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri with a 82.68).
The United States has medaled in ice dance at each of the past four Olympics and will count on these two strong pairs to maintain that streak. Since the 2018 PyeongChang Games, these tandems have bounced the U.S. national title back and forth. (Chock and Bates won this year and in 2020, while Hubbell and Donohue won in 2019 and 2021. The duo that didn’t win placed second each time.)
The U.S. streak of Olympic medals started in 2006 with Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto’s silver. That duo “started to open up a door of putting U.S. ice dance on the map,” said Jean-Luc Baker, who, with his partner Kaitlin Hawayek, is in 11th place after the rhythm dance. Meryl Davis and Charlie White won medals at the next two Games, including the gold in 2014, and Maia and Alex Shibutani took the bronze in 2018 ahead of Hubbell and Donohue.
“The U.S. ice dancers were the first to really push that — the extreme athleticism and the acrobatic-ness of the sport, but also the artistry and the beauty of the sport as well,” Hawayek said.
Hawayek and Baker have won the bronze medal at U.S. nationals the past four years, securing a spot in the pecking order behind the two dominant American tandems that arrived here in Beijing to chase a medal in this event.
Both of those top U.S. duos entered these Games four years after Olympic disappointments: Hubbell and Donohue slipped to fourth after errors in their free dance in 2018. Chock and Bates had a stunning collapse to the ice and finished ninth. They were both on the silver-winning team in Beijing, but they’re still seeking their first individual Olympic medals, with Saturday’s competition serving as the first step.
Hubbell said she entered the PyeongChang Games believing what she described as Olympic cliches — that medaling is “life-changing” and fourth place is “the worst.” When she tells others about her result that just missed the podium, they seem to believe in the agony of fourth, too. She cried about it for two days but then assured herself that fourth was better than fifth, sixth and all the other places. Now she feels proud of the result and all she and Donohue have accomplished since.
Hubbell and Donohue have said this will be their last competitive season, and when they finished their rhythm dance, Donohue let out a yell of excitement. They try to downplay the significance of the moment, but “there is a certain hype that comes from being on an Olympic stage,” he said after the performance that went about as well as they had hoped.
They talk about their connections with one another more than the medals — even as the possibility of earning one looms in the coming days. But as the team that sat in third ahead of the free dance at the Olympics four years ago, they also know how the standings can shuffle with a mistake.
Since then, “we’ve continued to push our boundaries and here we are — and hopefully walking away this time with a medal,” Hubbell said, “but no matter what, already with a completely different, more beautiful Olympic experience.”