Scoreography

Our long-promised annual Question and Answer episode is finally here. We respond to your queries about the origins of the show, our expectations with the return of the Russians, figure skating's popularity and how to sustain it, and lots more.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:02:19 Questions We Get Asked a Lot
• 00:03:18 Do we skate / have experience skating?
• 00:04:51 How did Wendy convince Adron to do a FS podcast?
• 00:14:02 Do you use AI in your thumbnails/videos?
• 00:16:16 Old fans of a young sport
• 00:21:06 Can FS sustain a surge in popularity?
• 00:29:44 Russian Return Impacts
• 00:31:44 Incorrect Historic Olympic Results
• 00:34:58 Decreasing Jumping Passes
• 00:36:59 Should Synchro be in the Olympics?
• 00:37:57 Stars on Ice Questions
• 00:44:52 Wish Fulfillment Questions
• 00:49:21 Grand Prix predictions?
• 00:53:20 Misc, beyond Figure Skating
• 00:58:52 Wrap-Up

Oh boy, we've been gone for awhile! But the new season has started and, like the Russians, we have returned! Kinoshita Cup gave us the first look at this new season, and we're gonna talk about it and some other figure skating news we've missed.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:55 Skating News Catch-Up
• 00:13:13 Kinoshita Cup 2026 Recap
• 00:14:01 Women's Event
• 00:27:53 Men's Competition
• 00:37:03 Pairs Competition
• 00:43:56 Ice Dance Competition
• 00:52:11 Some Other News and Wrap-Up

A new skating season (and quadrennial) is here, and we are back and ready. This summer has seen lots of off ice news including Amber Glenn joining Dancing With the Stars to Alysa Liu taking a break from competition. We'll definitely be following their journeys, but today we're talking Kinoshita Cup.

The second event in the Challenger series, this event was especially significant as the first senior international event that saw neutral Russian athletes in four years.

In the women's event, Mao Shimada put on an incredible show in her first senior international. She was second in the short, just behind a brilliant Ami Nakai. In the free skate, however, Mao pulled away with a breathtaking skate that included her triple axel, quad toe loop, and the best spins we saw in the competition.

In second place, after missing a full Olympic cycle, Alexandra Ignatova (Trusova) made her highly anticipated return. Her short program was refreshing and evolved, while her free skate was an absolute clinic of technical difficulty. Rounding out the top three with a strong overall showing was Anna Frolova of Russia.

We were away for awhile, and a TON of off season skating news dropped. We catch-up on retirement announcement, exciting new ice dance and pairs teams, the return of the Russians, and more.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:42 Ilia Malinin's... Announcement?
• 00:05:11 Retirement Announcements
• 00:12:17 Riku and Ryuchi's Destiny Tour
• 00:14:12 Alysa Liu wins an ESPY award
• 00:16:15 New Ice Dance pairings
• 00:29:16 New Pairs teams
• 00:37:16 Return of the Russians
• 00:47:53 First International Events of the Season!
• 00:55:41 Next up: our annual Q&A episode
• 00:56:43 Wrap-Up

Marin Honda and Shoma Uno have officially announced that they are returning from retirement — to compete in Ice Dance for Japan. We dig into this exciting news, plus round up what else has happened in this wild off season:

• Italy's Team Bronze pairs team Conti and Macii have officially split, as have the promising Australian pair Golubeva and Giotopoulos Moore.
• Starr Andrews has officially teamed up with Danill Parkman to compete for the USA in pairs, while Fiona Bombardier and Loucas Etheir have joined forces in Canada.
• Other retirements and team-ups have been announced, all while the competition plans for some of the US and Canada's biggest names remains in question.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:33 Marin Honda and Soma Uno Ice Dancers
• 00:12:07 Conti and Macii Split
• 00:14:12 Golubeva and Giotopoulos Moore Split
• 00:15:44 Vladimir Litvintsev Retires
• 00:16:52 Starr Andrews and Danill Parkman Pairs Partnership
• 00:20:31 Fiona Bombardier and Loucas Etheir Pairs Team
• 00:22:01 Milania Kristina Vaananen and Fillipo Ambrosini Pairs Team
• 00:23:02 What will Team USA and Team Canada look like this season?
• 00:28:46 Free Agent Skaters Dropping Hints
• 00:29:34 Wrap-Up and Continued Call for Q&A Submissions

The Stars On Ice 2026 Tour is in full swing, and we were fortunate enough to get ice-side seats at the St. Louis show. We give you a full breakdown and reaction to this (spoiler: FANTASTIC) show. Plus some skating news, including the announced split of Canadian ice dance team Lajoie and Lagha.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:46 Skating News
• 00:08:26 Stars on Ice Reaction
• 00:12:12 The Stargazer Experience
• 00:15:19 Andrew Torgashev
• 00:16:18 Isabeau Levito
• 00:16:59 Carreira and Ponomarenko
• 00:17:46 Zingas and Kolesnik
• 00:19:38 Jason Brown
• 00:22:32 Chock and Bates
• 00:23:53 Kam and O'Shea
• 00:25:10 Ilia Malinin
• 00:27:50 Amber Glenn
• 00:31:16 Alysa Liu
• 00:33:57 Final thoughts about SOI 2026
• 00:39:23 Wrap-Up

After a week away, we catch-up on a ton of figure skating news, including dance and pairs team splits, retirements, and other surprises. We also recount our trip to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. And Adron talks about learning his oldest sister was also a big figure skating fan, just days before her untimely passing last week.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro, the passing of Adron's sister (and connection to skating)
• 00:08:36 Our Denver Twice Trip
• 00:11:36 Skating News: Team Splits
• 00:25:02 Skating News: Retirements and Gap Years
• 00:32:29 Skating News: Misc
• 00:41:29 Our Colorado Springs visit
• 00:55:12 Call for Q&A Episode Questions
• 00:56:22 Wrap-Up

We're back with some offseason news after a short break. There's A LOT happening in figure skating for late April!

This month has been a roller coaster for us personally. Adron lost his oldest sister suddenly, which has been difficult for many reasons. We discuss this and how it actually connects to figure skating in the first 8 minutes of this week's episode. We know this type of discussion is challenging for some, so if you prefer to go right to the skating news, the chapter breaks can skip you ahead.

In terms of skating, the rumor mill has been going strong after video was shared by Marin Honda from Japan of her and Shoma Uno training at I.AM. The two have been doing ice dance routines in Shoma's tour, Ice Brave, and their time at I.AM. may be a continuation of that. Or, as we and many others are trying not to get too excited about, it could mean a possible return to competition. They have confirmed nothing, so let's keep it chill for now (with our fingers crossed).

When it comes to factual news, we talk through the splits of both Korea's Hannah Lim and Ye Quan, as well as Olivia Flores and Luke Wang from the USA.

We also get into our feelings over the un-surprising retirement of Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuchi Kihara. Following their victory at the Olympics, it was very much expected that they would hang up their competitive skates, but this one hurts. Others who have announced they are retiring are Ioulia Chtchetinina of Poland and Josefin Taljegard of Sweden.

Not retiring but taking a break for a season is Japan's Yuma Kagiyama. His absence will be a significant loss for the men's field, but may open opportunities for other Japanese men like Kazuki Tomono — or Rio Nakata, who will be moving up to the Senior ranks next season.

There are many other tidbits — like Alysa Liu's music video debut and Johnny and Tara hosting The Kelly Clarkson Show — which all makes for a very active month without competition. There's also discussion of our recent trip to Colorado Springs — the home of the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center for the U.S.. — which was admittedly not as exciting as we'd hoped for.

With the season finally complete, we reflect on the post-Worlds ISU Awards, catch-up on the latest skating news, and hand out our own 2nd annual Scoreography Awards.

After an amazing Olympic season of figure skating, it feels appropriate to give out awards to the skaters, programs, and costumes we loved most. Inspired by the ISU Awards, which we discuss in this episode, we give out our own Scoreography awards that, while involving no actual trophy or medal, we are sending from our hearts ti the skaters.

The ISU Awards, given out directly following the Gala Exhibition at the World Championships, is still a fairly young award show but appears to be something the skaters are enjoying — and even campaigning for in a few cases.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:02:55 Skating News
• 00:12:12 ISU Awards
• 00:28:25 The 2026 Scoreography Awards!
• 00:49:20 Gold in our Hearts — Season Edition
• 00:52:49 Wrap-Up

The 2025-2026 figure skating season finally wrapped up with the World Figure Skating Champions in Prague, and it absolutely lived up to the promise of Olympic redemption for many skaters. Unfortunately, it also provided more scoring confusion in the ice dance competition.

Chapters

00:00:00 Motion Graphic 00:01:15 Podcast Chapters vs AI Slop 00:03:41 Women's Competition 00:31:41 Pairs Competition 00:45:34 Men's Competition 01:08:27 Ice Dance Competition 01:21:01 Fear and Gibson and Controversy 01:46:45 Gold in our Hearts 01:51:27 Wrap-Up

Ice Dance at the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships could set the stage for the next Olympic cycle. Two of the three Olympics medal-winning teams are in Prague, along with teams from the US, Lithuania, and Great Britain all vying for medals.

The ice dance competition in Prague promises to tell several different stories! One will very likely be a victory lap for the Olympic Champions, Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron. With Chock and Bates not coming to Worlds (and possibly retiring soon), the biggest threat to a first World title will be Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada. However, it would be quite an upset at this point for "GuiLo" to be defeated after a dominant season and the wave of momentum off of their Olympic victory. They have kind of indicated they will be continuing after this season, so this could be the start of a new World's dynasty.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro 00:00:51 Withdrawals: Who Won't Be Competing 00:03:08 Fournier-Beaudry and Cizerone 00:04:35 Gilles and Poirier 00:07:34 Fear and Gibson 00:09:14 Zingas and Kolesnik 00:11:31 Lopareva and Brissaud 00:13:03 Reed and Ambrulevicius 00:14:55 Davis and Smolkin 00:16:18 Smart and Dieck 00:18:08 LaJoie and Lagha 00:21:04 Carreira and Ponomarenko 00:22:30 Turkkila and Versluis 00:23:48 Rest of the Field 00:31:34 Podium Predictions 00:33:05 Wrap-Up

The men's event at the 2026 World Figure Skating Championships is all about redemption. Ilia Malinin comes in as the favorite, but with questions around the effect his Olympic experience may have on what he delivers in Prague. Best case scenario is he "goes ham" and holds nothing back. Ilia is almost always at his best when he's going for the biggest and boldest programs.

Also looking to have two consecutive clean skates are the Olympic Silver and Bronze medalists from Japan, Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato. Both of these men had one brilliant skate in Milan, and several that were less than they would have wished for. If they can bring great short and free programs to the competition, they will try likely both be getting medals on this podium as well.

There's a long list of others that are sure to make this an exciting — and likely nerve wracking — event to watch. Who gets their redemption arc?! Only time will tell.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro 00:00:52 Withdrawals: Who WON'T Be There 00:05:32 Ilia Malinin 00:12:21 Yuma Kagiyama 00:16:14 Shun Sato 00:18:12 Daniel Grassl 00:19:07 Adam Siao Him Fa 00:21:11 Stephen Gogolev 00:24:52 Kao Muira 00:26:12 Nika Egadze 00:27:51 Kevin Aymoz 00:29:15 Andrew Torgashev 00:31:19 Other Men in the Competition 00:33:55 Podium Predictions 00:36:38 Wrap-Up