The Winter Olympics are back: How figure skating works, explained by Ohio State skating club members

Marissa Yang
Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:48:53 +0000
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Members of the Ohio State Figure Skating Club pose for a picture. Credit: Courtesy of Cate Rukin

Vinnie DiNatale said there are two questions figure skaters often get asked:?

“Can you do a triple axel?”?

“Are you going to the Olympics?”?

There is, however, much more to figure skating than those two questions, according to DiNatale, a second-year in food business management who has 16 years of ice skating experience and is a U.S. Figure Skating collegiate skating ambassadors.?

With the 2026 Winter Olympics starting on Friday, including the ever-popular figure skating competition, members from the Ohio State Figure Skating Club explained how to watch the sport and what to look for during the highly anticipated lineup of events.?

There are two main routines in any figure skating competition: the short program and the long program.?

The short program, which comes first, requires three jumps, three spins and a footwork sequence. The long program requires seven jumps, three spins, a choreographic sequence and a footwork sequence.?

DiNatale described the short program as a sprint, compared to the marathon style of the long program.?

“You can’t win in the short program, but you can lose in the short program,” DiNatale’s former Olympian coach, Gracie Gold, used to tell him.?

While both programs contribute greatly to a skater’s final score, the short program sets the tone for a skater’s chances to medal in a competition.?

“It’s a really high-stakes program,” Zachary Fogt, president of OSUFSC and a third-year in economics, said. “If you make one mistake on one of those three jumps, it can really sink your program, whereas in the long program there’s a lot more margin for error.”?

In Olympic figure skating under the International Judging System, the technical element score and the program component score make up an overall program score. The former relies on how well a skater executes their jumps, spins, and step sequences. The latter focuses on skating quality.?

Figure skating tends to be a balance of artistry and technicality.?

“Ideally, every skater would have both,” Fogt said. “It’s best to prioritize the one you’re better at.”

Choosing which element to perform in which program is up to skater’s discretion. Knowing which elements maximize both skill and comfort level contributes to both technical and component scores.?

Spins have base values that range from one to four. Each variation of a spin consists of a different level. The more difficult and precise spins are, as deemed by judges, the higher the level the spin will receive.?

A base level is also assigned to each type of jump;the more difficult a jump is, the higher the base value.?

Based on how well a spin and jump are executed, judges assign a Grade of Execution value. Skaters can get up to plus five or minus five, with a guaranteed minus five if a skater falls on the jump.?

Every detail of each element counts–skaters must be be precise and expressive.?

“There are certain things in the rulebook the judges supposedly say they look for,” DiNatale said. “A difficult entrance into a jump…flow across the ice, how effortless it looks.”?

While figure skating is usually considered an individual sport, the Olympics call for team structure and strength. Representing women’s figure skating, Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn, and Isabeau Levito are all renowned skaters in their respective ways.?

Liu, 20, seeks the podium after coming out of retirement, Glenn offers an impressive triple axel, and Levito has earned a world title.?

On the men’s side, Ilia Malinin, known as the“Quad God” is aiming to become the first skater to land a quad axel at the Olympics.?

A single axel requires one and a half rotations in the air. Multiply that by four, and the quad axel is arguably the most difficult jump in figure skating.?

In 2022 he became the first and only figure skater to land a successful quad axel in 2022.

“The axel jump itself is just so hard because it’s the only jump that takes off forward,” DiNatale said. “Your center of gravity is off, and there’s more room for error.”?

As other jumps in figure skating have a backward entry, it’s harder for skaters to control the axel with the forward entrance. If a skater’s shoulder drops in the slightest or their arms swing too early, it all affects the result.?

“Those things come down to the millisecond [of] decisions that you’re making,” DiNatale said.?