Instead, when ice dancers compete at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the focus will be on refined togetherness - "think ballroom dancing meets Cirque du Soleil," says silver medalist Tanith Belbin White. You also won’t see ice dancers delivering any overhead lifts, throw jumps, or anything else airborne. In fact, it’s the only figure skating event that actively bans jumps: Skaters can only perform singles, as opposed to the quads you see in singles’ skating. “It’s almost impossible to give an entirely objective answer to that question because of the artistic quality of the sport - which, by the way, is also what I love most about it - but some of the biggest names in ice dance history are Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, and the first American Olympic gold medalists in the sport, Meryl Davis and Charlie White,” she says.If you think of figure skating as gymnastics on ice, a mind-boggling and dizzying assortment of intricate spins, leaps, twirls, and jumps, then ice dancing is its more elegant ice-bound sibling. Sure, Belbin White ranks among the greats, but the skater is happy to share the spotlight with other notables, including her husband, gold medalist Charlie White. Who are the best ice dancers of all time?
Then, while in the lift, the lifting partner needs to spin fast enough to maintain that force,” says Belbin. Whether it be speed, or centrifugal force, or both depending on the type of lift, the team has to find the perfect moment to use all those factors to their advantage. “In the case of a rotating lift, when one partner is spinning across the ice while holding the other off the ice, it has as much to do with momentum as it does timing and strength. The skaters perform the rotations quickly with a continuous action, side by side, preferably close to each other on the ice (though not touching).įigure Skating Ice Dance - Day 10 (Streeter Lecka / Getty Images) How do ice dancers spin each other around without losing their balance?Īgain, it’s a case of practice, practice, and more practice, because there’s very little margin for error.
Twizzle dance series#
Twizzles are a series of turns on one foot. There are synchronized twizzles, however, which are the same number of rotations (or more) than a quadruple jump but the blades stay in contact with the ice while spinning through fast rotations at a high speed,” says Belbin. “No jumps in the ice dance competition, like what you see in singles and pairs skating. Teams repeat the same lifts hundreds of times before they compete to ensure the blade is always in the same place, and the balance is reliably secure.” Can ice dancers do jumps? If either partner is unstable or the timing in establishing the lift position is off, that’s when accidents can happen. “The fabric from costumes provides another layer of protection, in the case of the women standing on the man’s leg, which is a common type of ice dance lift,” says Belbin. ice dancing team to win a silver medal at the 2006 Olympics in Turin.Īnd the costumes also play their part. To answer some of the most googled questions about ice dancing - like how do ice dancers stand on each other and not get cut? - we spoke with Belbin White, who with Ben Agosto was part of the first-ever U.S. Team USA's ice dancers will be on-and-off-ice couple Madison Chock and Evan Bates in their third Olympics as a team, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue in their second Olympics, and Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker in their Olympic debuts. If you think of figure skating as gymnastics on ice, a mind-boggling and dizzying assortment of intricate spins, leaps, twirls, and jumps, then ice dancing is its more elegant ice-bound sibling.
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