The Skating Session

Tony and Thomas highlight day 2 of the team event and then have to go straight off into packing for Milan. Today featured the men's short program, confirmed the top 5 teams to the free skates, and began with the free dance. Shame on us for counting Canada out of making the final! Does anything change by Ilia Malinin announcing he will skate the free skate tomorrow? It's all here.

Tony and Thomas highlight day 1 of the team event and the start of the 2026 Olympic Games! The rhythm dance, pairs short, and women's short are all completed and give us a bette glimpse into the 5 teams that will qualify to the free skates. Have our favorites for gold and bronze changes? Do countries need to rethink their teams? It's all here!

Link to Download Scoring Spreadsheet:

• https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1d5o7COnlGudxd742w0Sqg4rLEXQwI9mH

Watch us go through it on YouTube!

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVNf4b61kn4

Download the spreadsheet we used to try this on your own!

• 2026 Olympic Team Event Simulator by the Skating Session

Tony and Thomas give you two videos in less than 24 hours! Today we go in depth with our own simulations of the 2026 Olympic figure skating team event, including our rationales, our most important segments to look out for, which skaters may be asked to do double-duty across both segments, and share our final point totals. Spoiler: we have different winners.

Watch us on YouTube to see us do this live!

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCQxU60EqwU

Tony and Thomas review the three-part Glitter & Gold documentary that was released on Netflix earlier today. The series features a look at Chock & Bates, Gilles & Poirier, and Fournier Beaudry & Cizeron and their push from the end of the 2025 season into the Grand Prix series of this Olympic year. We share our favorite moments, the confusion over the direction that the documentary was originally planned to go, question why it's left at only three episodes, and more. In case you missed the social media announcement, we also share our big news regarding the Olympics at the start!

Tony and Thomas review the 2026 Four Continents Championships. Some skaters are wild by skating here and then heading to the Olympic in less than two weeks! The most perfect result ever in the women's event? Maybe. The best use of PCS ever in an event? Definitely not. We review all of the disciplines giving a rundown of the top skaters. Tony is also trying to build up The Skating Session Instagram account, so please follow?

Coming up after this, expect heavy coverage of the Olympic Games with new videos every single day!

Tony and Thomas review the 2026 European Championships. Nerves or saving energy for the Olympics? Either way, the competition was a bit of a letdown in most of the disciplines. We review dance, pairs, men, and women and share some of our standout skates.. and of course, our thoughts on how the dance competition in particular played out. Did the judges get it right? Speaking of which, we give high praise to the judges in one discipline over using the system in the way it is supposed to be used— finally! Enjoy!

Tony and Thomas are back from St. Louis and ready to talk all things National Championships. Running on zero sleep, we highlight all four disciplines, the no-surprise Olympic announcements, some of the insights we heard from skaters, officials, and fans throughout the week, and some of our favorite moments and run-ins with former champions and skating personalities.

Watch us on YouTube!

Watch on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/145468805

(No YouTube this week, they don't want us showing elements!)

Tony and Thomas complete recapping the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan. As seems to be requested most heavily, we do a deeper dive into the dance event and compare the elements of the top teams against the all-but-forgotten about GOE scoring rubric. We share our opinions of the results between the top two and the heated battle for the bronze medal, and then briefly recap the women's competition. Enjoy!

Tony and Thomas are back with their first of two videos recapping the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan. 30 years of this event, and it's the last time contenders from both Europeans and Four Continents nations will face off against each other before the Olympic Games. This first video focuses on the pairs and mens competitions, with a brief look at ice dance. Tomorrow, we will deep-dive the dance event and also review the women's competition. Enjoy!

Tony and Thomas are back on this “off week” in preparation for the Grand Prix Final. We have some updates on the response from our Finlandia judging video, including reactions around the Internet and through the ISU as well as a current competitor writing to us about all of it. We also opened up the forum this week to ask questions that you would like us to answer and discuss. Enjoy!

Link to YouTube videos of edges: The Four Figure Skating Turns

Thomas’ “Technical Panel” Youtube videos: @thetechnical panel

Olympic qualifying document / SkatingScores charts:

USFS Oly Selection Criteria

Skating Scores Women's Chart

Skating Scores Men's Chart

Skating Scores Pairs Chart

Skating Scores Dance Chart

ISU Technical Documentation

The Technical Requirements for 2025/2026

Ice Dance Scoring Rules & Rubric

Scale of Values