Olympic figure skating continues Monday, Feb. 9 with the rhythm dance, and all eyes will be on three-time U.S. world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

Chock and Bates head into the event after helping Team USA to an Olympic figure skating team event gold medal on Sunday evening, with wins in both their segments. 

Their rhythm dance is set to a Lenny Kravitz medley — a program that has only strengthened throughout a season in which the seven-time national champions have been undefeated. 

The married couple have competed at three previous Games together — finishing 8th in 2014, 9th in 2018 and 4th in 2022 — and were part of the U.S. team that later received Olympic gold from the 2022 team event in a delayed ceremony at the Paris Summer Games. Milan Cortina represents their fourth Olympics as a pair, in what is likely their final season.

The primary challengers are France’s newly formed duo of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, who have surged into medal contention in their first season together.

Cizeron is already an Olympic champion, having won gold in 2022 with Gabriella Papadakis, while Fournier Beaudry is a 2022 Olympian who rebuilt her career following the dissolution of her previous partnership. The French team arrives in Milan fresh off a dominant European Championships win, where they posted the highest total score of the season (222.43).

With a rhythm dance set to Madonna’s “Vogue,” they have shown the ability to match Chock and Bates technically when clean. The two teams met once this season, at the Grand Prix Final, where Chock and Bates led after the rhythm dance and ultimately won after a fall disrupted the French free dance.

If Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron can deliver two clean programs in Milan, they have the scoring potential to challenge for gold.

Canada’s veteran pairing of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are in Milan for their third Olympics together. The Canadians are two-time world silver medalists and won their fifth national title last month, posting a total score at the Canadian Championships that exceeded what Chock and Bates earned at U.S. nationals. Their rhythm dance — inspired by 1990s runway culture — has produced strong base values this season, though they’ve also been vocal about strict technical calls.

Great Britain’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson bring momentum of their own after winning world bronze in 2025, Britain’s first world figure skating medal in more than four decades. Their Spice Girls rhythm dance emphasizes performance and crowd engagement, and they finished ahead of Gilles and Poirier at December’s Grand Prix Final.

Italy’s home favorites Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri skate in front of a Milan crowd just minutes from their training base. The three-time European champions rebounded from a slow start to the season with a silver medal at Europeans in January, placing themselves firmly back in the Olympic podium conversation.

While Chock and Bates headline the American contingent, the U.S. brings two additional teams capable of influencing the standings.

Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik skate 16th and arrive in Milan after one of the most dramatic breakout seasons in ice dance. Teamed up only since 2022, they earned silver at Grand Prix China behind Chock and Bates, earned bronze at Grand Prix Finland, qualified for their first Grand Prix Final, then captured U.S. silver and Four Continents gold.

They are skating their first Olympics, carrying personal-best scores over 200 internationally and bringing a rhythm dance set to Bell Biv DeVoe that emphasizes speed and attack. Kolesnik became a U.S. citizen in August, with members of his family still in Ukraine, adding emotional weight to his Olympic debut.

Also Olympic first-timers, Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko will be looking to make a statement. After a slow start to the season, the pair made sweeping program changes ahead of the U.S. Championships — including returning to their acclaimed “Perfume” free dance — and skated their way onto the Olympic team.

Their rhythm dance, set to La Bouche and Crystal Waters, has been rebuilt this winter with new choreography and lifts, and they’ll look to capitalize on cleaner execution than earlier in the season.

This season’s rhythm dance is built around a 1990s theme, mandated by the International Skating Union, with teams required to showcase the music, dance styles and overall feel of the decade. The result is one of the most eclectic Olympic rhythm dance fields in years, blending pop, rock, hip-hop and runway-inspired choreography, while still demanding precise technical elements like pattern steps, twizzles and lifts. From Spice Girls medleys to Madonna, Lenny Kravitz and ‘90s club beats, the theme has pushed skaters to balance crowd-pleasing performance with athleticism and power.