After Team USA won gold in the figure skating team events, could they do the same in the pairs event?
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — Team USA has one of the strongest U.S. Figure Skating teams in history competing in the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. After winning gold in the figure skating team event, two couples weren’t able to replicate the magic in the free skate pairs event.
Figure skaters Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea, and Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe represented Team USA in the event on Monday. The two duos took to the ice in the Milano Ice Skating Arena and finished eighth and sixth, respectively.
Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara took home gold, the first time a pair from Japan has won a medal in the event at the Olympics.
Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava won silver, while Germany’s Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin were awarded bronze.
Both American pairs previously contributed to Team USA’s gold medal in the figure skating team event.
The German pair were the favorite to win the pairs free skate event. Kam and O’Shea were not considered high scorers in the individual pairs event after finishing in seventh during the pairs short program. Chan and Akira finished in ninth Sunday.
The U.S. has never had a pairs Olympic champion. In fact, it hasn’t had a medalist of any flavor since Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard earned the bronze medal at the 1988 Calgary Games, and Kam and O’Shea were not considered favorites in the individual pairs event.
Kam and O’Shea endured a long, painful journey to Olympic figure skating gold
The injuries O’Shea has endured over three decades as he tried to realize his Olympic dream are easy to see.
They are scars and bruises and bumps and lumps.
The one that his pairs partner, Kam, suffered last year is not.
Shortly after O’Shea underwent surgery to repair a broken foot, Kam sustained a severe concussion last summer when she hit her head on the ice during a fall. She was sidelined for about a month, putting preparations for the most important season of their lives — and perhaps O’Shea’s last chance at the Winter Games — in a state of flux.
So when they stepped on the ice for the team event earlier this month, and ultimately helped the Americans defend their gold medal, the beaming smiles that both Kam and O’Shea wore on their faces were rooted in a whole lot of pain.
“I don’t really have the words because it’s supposed to be just another competition,” Kam said, “but it’s so much more than that.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.