Pairs Figure Skating Results for 2026 Winter Olympics, Germany Leads After Short Program
Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin are halfway to pairs figure skating gold at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.
The pair from Germany turned in the best short program in Sunday's competition and will take the lead into Monday's free skate where the medals will be on the line. Here is a look at how the top of the field stacks up after the first day of skating:
- Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin, Germany (80.01)
- Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava, Georgia (75.46)
- Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, Canada (74.60)
- Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko, Hungary (73.87)
- Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, Japan (73.11)
While this competition was expected to be close, Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara seemed like the team to beat entering Sunday's skate. However, their performance was anything but clean, and a handful of key mistakes may have cost them a chance at gold.
While they were at least within striking distance of Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava even after the Georgia pair dazzled the crowd with an impressive showing, the German pair of Hase and Volodin dramatically raised the bar with their nearly flawless skate to end the day.
This is the second time some of the pairs have taken the ice at the 2026 Games after competing in the team figure skating event as well.
All eyes were on Japan's Miura and Kihara after they won the pairs portion of that team event and were followed by Georgia's Metelkina and Berulava in second and Italy's Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii in third.
The United States' Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea finished in fourth place, although the Americans still captured gold in the overall team event thanks in large part to brilliance from Madison Chock and Evan Bates in ice dance and Ilia Malinin in the men's individual competition.
Talia Barrington of NBC Sports noted "historically, pairs remains the United States' weakest figure skating discipline" since it has never taken home Olympic gold and last medaled in 1988.
Breaking that medal drought will be a tall ask this year, as Kam and O'Shea (71.87) finished just ahead of fellow United States competitors Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe (70.06) and in seventh place with a solid performance that didn't quite match those of the leaders.
While the Americans weren't skating under the pressure of medal expectations, the same could not be said of Miura and Kihara of Japan.
The two-time World champions entered the Games having the season's best score. They also swept both Grand Prix assignments and the Grand Prix Final this year, per Barrington, and looked primed to win Japan's first Olympic pairs medal in history.
Still, Metelkina and Berulava won the 2026 European Championships and entered as serious threats, while Conti and Macii have the home crowd behind them and momentum after their team performance.
Perhaps that pressure got to the Japanese and Italian teams, though, as they struggled at times to live up to their normally elevated standards.
As a result, it is Hase and Volodin's competition to lose.
