Madison Chock and Evan Bates have already won one medal at Milan Cortina after the U.S. figure skating team took home gold for the second straight Winter Olympics. Now, the ice dance partners are looking for their first ever medal in the individual event.
Chock and Bates skate like a partnership that’s been stress-tested for a decade: calm, precise and hard to rattle. And that makes sense. They’ve been a team since 2011 and got married in 2024. This is the fourth Olympics for Chock and the fifth for Bates.
They’re veterans. And it shows.
How to watch Madison Chock and Evan Bates in the ice dance competition
- Venue: Milano Ice Skating Arena — Assago, Italy
- Date: Feb. 9-11
- TV: NBC, USA Network
- Streaming: Peacock, NBCOlympics.com
Follow along with The Athletic’s Olympic schedule interactive page and Games Briefing, a daily Olympics newsletter.
One detail that tells you how she thinks: Chock designs costumes. She made roughly a dozen outfits for competitors at the 2026 Games. That is the brain of a dancer. Everyone else is chasing edges and levels; she is also thinking about silhouette, speed and what reads from the top row.
Chock and Bates opened the Games cleanly, scoring early and letting everyone else feel the weight of it. In the rhythm dance Friday, the couple skated to a Lenny Kravitz medley, building the program around speed and precision: twizzles, step sequences and a rotational lift threaded through the music’s swagger. They posted a world-leading 91.06 to put the U.S. on top after the first day.
They followed that with a jaw-dropping free dance Saturday, skating to Ramin Djawadi’s arrangement of “Paint It Black” with the kind of trust that can only be earned, not manufactured. Their season-high 133.23 points kept Team USA on top heading into Sunday, when Ilia Malinin secured the gold with a clutch performance of his own.
The bigger storyline for the duo is what comes after the team medals. In the individual ice dance event, Chock and Bates have a resume that makes “contender” sound like an understatement. Together, they’ve won three world championships and seven national titles, and their best scores have pushed into world-record territory, including at the World Team Trophy. But their best Olympic finish outside the team portion has been a fourth-place showing in 2022.
Chock and Bates are the United States program’s most bankable ice dance commodity, built for what the Games most demand: consistency under scrutiny. In what could be their last Olympics, they have two more performances left to try to win the individual gold that has eluded them so far.
Ice dance events and live start times
All times below are ET. The venue feed does not include commentary.
Monday, Feb. 9
- Rhythm dance, Part 1: 1:20 p.m. (Peacock — venue feed), 1:45 p.m. (USA)
- Rhythm dance, Part 2: 2:40 p.m. (NBC)
The rhythm dance event will re-air on USA at 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Wednesday, Feb. 11
- Free dance, Part 1: 1:15 p.m. (USA); 1:30 p.m. (Peacock — venue feed)
- Free dance, Part 2: 2:15 p.m. (NBC)
The free dance event will re-air on USA at 1:30 a.m. Thursday.
The ice dance medals will be awarded after the free dance competition concludes.
