Winter Olympics Figure Skating 2018: Updated Primetime Schedule for USA
Three of the five figure skating events are complete at the 2018 Winter Games, with medals handed out so far in the pairs and men's singles as well as the team competition. The second week of action in Pyeongchang, South Korea, figures to be just as exciting, with the ice dancers and the ladies' singles still to go.
The schedule sets up perfectly for primetime viewing in the United States, as skaters will be performing in the late morning and early afternoon locally, but the time difference puts their performances in front of the biggest TV audiences.
Here's a quick rundown of the remaining figure skating TV schedule as well as a primer on what to expect from the ice dance and ladies' singles events.
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Figure Skating Schedule (Start Time)
All events shown live on NBC and streamed at NBCOlympics.com.
Sunday, Feb. 18 (8 p.m. ET)
Ice Dance Short Dance
Monday, Feb. 19 (8 p.m. ET)
Ice Dance Free Dance
Tuesday, Feb. 20 (8 p.m. ET)
Ladies' Singles Short Program
Thursday, Feb. 22 (8 p.m. ET)
Ladies' Singles Free Skate
Ice Dance Preview
Four years after earning the silver medal in Sochi, Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are poised to return to the top of the podium and earn their second gold medals of the 2018 Winter Games. The ice dancing duo helped their country win gold in the team event last week.
With four medals overall, including the ice dancing gold from Vancouver in 2010, Virtue and Moir are tied with Sweden's Gillis Grafstrom and Russia's Yevgeny Plushenko for most in Olympic history. By the end of their next competition they could be all alone in first.
Their top competition will come from the United States' "Shib Sibs"—Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani—and France's Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron. The Shibutanis were second to Virtue and Moir in the ice dancing portion of the team competition and won bronze at the 2017 world championships in Helsinki, Finland, where Papadakis and Cizeron claimed silver behind Virtue and Moir.
American duos Madison Chock/Evan Bates and Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue could also contend for a medal. They were seventh and ninth, respectively, at the world championships.
Ladies' Singles Preview
Evgenia Medvedeva is the reigning world champion, and she helped the Olympic Athletes of Russia win silver in the team competition, but after placing first in the short program—and earning a record score in the process—she was passed over for teammate Alina Zagitova for the free skate. That decision furthers a heated rivalry between the teens, who are training partners but also each other's toughest competition.
The 15-year-old Zagitova beat 18-year-old Medvedeva at the European Championships in Moscow in January, ending Medvedeva's two-year unbeaten streak.
"Zhenya and I are good friends," Zagitova said of Medvedeva, per Dave Skretta of the Associated Press. "There's obviously a rivalry at the training sessions, but it's not a bad one. It's playful. We encourage each other. It's good motivation."
The skaters with the best chance to beat out the Russians for gold include Canadians Kaetlyn Osmond, Gabrielle Daleman, who claimed the silver and bronze behind Medvedeva at the 2017 world championships, as well as Italy's Carolina Koster and American Mirai Nagasu.
All dates/times based on NBC's U.S. TV schedule (ET), which is 14 hours behind the dates/times in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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