men's figure skating

After the Fall: How Olympic figure skaters soar after stumbling on the ice

2026-02-07 19:20:00 UTC

Olympic figure skating is often seems to take athletes to the very edge of perfection, but even the greatest stumble and fall. How do they pull themselves together again on the biggest world stage? Toughness, poise and practice.

Single_skating

Single skating is a discipline of figure skating in which male and female skaters compete individually. Men's singles and women's singles are governed by the International Skating Union (ISU). Figure skating is the oldest winter sport contested at the Olympics, with men's and women's single skating appearing as two of the four figure skating events at the London Games in 1908.

Single skaters are required to perform two segments in all international competitions, the short program and the free skating program. Nathan Chen from the United States holds both the highest single men's short program and free skating scores; Russian skater Kamila Valieva holds both the highest single women's short program and free skating scores. Compulsory figures, from which the sport of figure skating gets its name, were a crucial part of the sport for most of its history until the ISU voted to remove them in 1990.