The Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 will mark the seventh instance of the U.S. sending three ice dance teams to the Games. In five of those previous six times, U.S. has returned with a medal.
This includes an unbroken streak of hardware that dates back to 2006 when Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto brought home silver, marking the first U.S. ice dance medal in 30 years. Meryl Davis and Charlie White earned silver in 2010 and the first gold medal for Team USA in ice dance in 2014. Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani captured bronze in 2018, becoming the first ice dancers of Asian descent to earn an Olympic medal.
In 2022, the tradition is expected to continue, with Madison Chock and Evan Bates, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, and Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker charged with representing the U.S.
"We're looking forward to the opportunity to continue the legacy," Hubbell said after being named to the Olympic team. Â
Madison Chock and Evan Bates
Three-time and reigning U.S. champions Chock and Bates will compete in their third Olympics together, though Bates additionally competed in 2010 with former partner Emily Samuelson.
"Being U.S. champions has definitely been a really difficult title to win, because you have to go through World medalists to be the top team in your own country – which ultimately, I think, both teams benefit from," Bates said. "I think we're both stronger because of that domestic rivalry. We worked really hard to prepare for the event and also, we took some risks with our music and concept choices this year. It was nice to see that our creativity paid off."
Chock and Bates placed eighth at the 2014 Olympics and finished ninth at the 2018 Olympics. In their careers, they've earned two World Championship medals and have continued to find their place "in the landscape of ice dance," as Bates put it.
The team also said that their confidence is boosted by their ability to continue to grow and find their unique voice, which they often use to develop programs with themes of hope, acceptance and love.
"The Olympics is such a grand stage and you have that opportunity to reach so many people and they see you on the ice for four minutes," Chock said. "What do we want to say in those four minutes while we're on the ice? This year, we want to share this really special message with everyone and hopefully it does spread hope and reminds people specifically for this program – where I play an alien and Evan is an astronaut – that we may be different in many ways, but we're also more similar than we are different if we take the time to really look at it. Our program at its roots is about love and acceptance, and finding love and acceptance in someone who's different than you are."
The team traditionally watches their performances after a competition to make notes on what to improve for the next competition. This time, after U.S. Championships, Bates stumbled upon their first nationals together as a team, which offered him some valuable perspective.
"It was like, 'wow, we're so bad,'" he said with a laugh (though possibly unfairly, as the team finished fifth). "But I think what's exciting for us: the feeling that there's still room for improvement and still room for growth. I think that comes with enjoying what we do, which we definitely do, and enjoying who we do it with, obviously, and the coaches and the environment that we've got. They've made it feel still fresh and still…"
"Exciting," Chock finished, while adding a gentle defense of their younger selves, "They were younger then! They were doing their best. They did the best they could at that time."
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Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue
Hubbell and Donohue earned silver medals at the 2022 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships and are making their second Olympic appearance.
"We don't have bad memories of 2018 – we were Olympians," Hubbell said. "We're very proud of finishing fourth in our first Olympic Games, by all means. But there was that little tinge of regret because we felt that we didn't control the scenario as well as we knew we could."
Hubbell said that this time around, the team has focused more on their long-term goals regarding 2022 and putting in the small steps each day to get there. They've worked on their ability to be calmer and more coachable, and said it's been very effective for them.
"We've been far more consistent in the last four years than we were in the previous four," she continued. "We're very proud of what we've accomplished with our three [U.S.] titles and our three World medals. So, I think we enter these Games in a totally different mindset because we're very proud of what we already accomplished. We have the opportunity to accomplish another goal. But it doesn't feel like the same weight as what we carried last time."
As excited and prepared as the team is to participate in their second Games (Hubbell admitted to starting to pack a full two weeks before departing for Beijing), they have already made it known this will be their final competitive season.
"We didn't have a sit-down this season and go, 'hey, are you done?'" Donohue explained. "We just knew. There are multiple different reasons for it, but it's not something that drives us, really. It's a known fact. It's not going to be changed by anything that happens this season. It has no effect. If anything, it just gives us a chance to step back and have a little more room to appreciate everything we're undertaking and experiencing."
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Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker
When Hawayek learned in a phone call near 1 a.m. that she and Baker had been named to their first Olympic team, she was moved to tears.
"Jean-Luc and I hugged each other and I started crying," she recalled. "I got a little bit teared up at the end of the free dance itself, but I really genuinely started crying after getting the call and being able to hug Jean-Luc in person. This has been a decade long journey that we've been working towards. It was a certain amount of relief, release and a big emotional outpouring."
Though Olympic rookies, they are not strangers to the international stage. They've earned three top-10 finishes at the World Championships plus the 2018 Four Continents title, in addition to their World Junior title from 2014.
At the Olympics, Baker said the team hopes to finish within the top eight, adding "we're going for it." In both 2014 and 2018, all three U.S. ice dance teams have finished inside the top 10.
Beyond their final result, they're also looking forward to the opportunity to connect with a larger audience beyond those who are present in the arena that day. They noted that they were inspired by the great U.S. ice dance teams at the Olympics when they were younger, too.
"It's an opportunity on the world's biggest stage to have people feel something and hopefully inspire the youth the way we were inspired so many times watching it on TV," Baker said.
All three U.S. teams train together in Montreal. Hubbell and Donohue moved in 2015, and Chock and Bates and Hawayek and Baker joined them in Canada following the 2018 season.
"It's really special to make the team with the team that we have," Hawayek said. "I've grown up with them [Chock and Bates and Hubbell and Donohue] as big siblings, in a way. It's really special for us to be going with the people that we're going with."
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