Bates Captures Second Straight Team Olympic Gold with Partner Chock
2/8/2026 7:00:00 PM | Olympics
MILAN, Italy -- University of Michigan alumnus Evan Bates and his partner Madison Chock captured Olympic figure skating team event gold medals at the Milan Cortina Games on Sunday (Feb. 8) at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. The duo contributed first-place finishes in both ice dancing categories the previous two days to help the USA defend its team gold from four years ago.
Bates and Chock put up season bests in both the rhythm dance (91.06) and free dance (133.23) to earn Team USA the maximum 20 points from the ice dancing portion. They skated to a medley of Lenny Kravitz songs in the rhythm dance, held just hours before the opening ceremony, and scored top marks for their pattern dance type step sequence and earned 52.77 points for their technical elements score overall.
Taking the ice to an orchestral rendition of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" in the free dance the next day, the pair earned Level 4s on four elements, including a curve-curve combination lift that tallied 14.74 points, which was the highest-scoring element of the competition.
Bates and Chock, who married in 2024, also won team gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2022 after the top finisher -- the Russians -- were disqualified amid a doping scandal. The Americans were presented with their gold medal during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris after nearly two years of litigation. The USA has medaled in the figure skating team event since it started in 2014.
Team USA squandered a five-point lead entering the team's final day after Japan won both the pairs free skate and women's free skate earlier Sunday evening, and the countries were deadlocked, 59-59, in the final session of the competition.
USA's Ilia Malinin, the two-time world champion who took second in the short program the day before, landed five quadruple jumps and scored 200.03 points for his free skate, while Japan's Shun Sato followed with 194.86 points for a runner-up finish. USA finished the team event with 69 points, while Japan took silver with 68 points, and host Italy claimed bronze with 60 points.
Bates, an Ann Arbor native and 2013 U-M graduate, is the first American figure skater to compete in five Olympics. He and Chock are the three-time and reigning ice dance world champions and are considered favorites in the individual ice dance competition, slated for Monday (Feb. 9) and Wednesday (Feb. 11).
