Celebrating 50 Years of Ice Dance at the Olympics
by Anne Calder | Banner Photo by Gina Capellazzi | Spotlight Photos by Robin Ritoss
At the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan, Italy, Ice Dance will celebrate its Olympic golden anniversary. The discipline was first competed at the Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria from February 4-15, 1976.
Dancing on ice traces its origins back to the mid 1800’s as a social activity. When figure skating was first introduced to the Olympics as a sport in 1908, ice dance was not included. It took another six decades for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to recognize its athleticism.
WINTER SPORTS IN THE SUMMER OLYMPICS
London, England hosted the 1908 Summer Olympics. Figure Skating was contested at the Games for the first time. Nearly six months after the Olympic opening ceremony, men and ladies singles and pair teams competed at Prince’s Skating Club in Knightsbridge October 28–29. The unusual timing was because the artificial rink was a winter venue and not open during summer months.
Twelve years later at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, Ice hockey players joined the single and pair skaters as non-summer participants. Competitions were held at the Palais de Glace d’Anvers ice rink four months prior to the main event to accommodate winter athletic conditions and maintain ice on an indoor rink.
The Canadian hockey team, represented by the Winnipeg Falcons won gold. The U.S. and Czechoslovakia took home silver and bronze. Belgium, France, Sweden and Switzerland also competed.
Theresa Weld (Blanchard) from the U.S. won the Ladies single bronze medal. Together with skating partner, Nathanial Niles the duo placed fourth in pairs.
FIRST WINTER OLYMPICS
The 1908 and 1920 summer hosts did not have suitable ice facilities for competition. Four years later, a separate Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix, France to allow a better scheduling for ice and snow sports. Men and ladies singles plus pair skating were competed.
Ice Dance with its rich history and growing popularity was not yet invited to the Olympic experience.
By the 1930’s, England, Canada, Austria and the U.S. were already holding national competitions that included one or more compulsory dances, the original dance, and the free dance. However, the discipline would have to wait to compete on the International stage.
ICE DANCE COMPETES AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
In Paris, France on February 27, 1952 Ice Dance made it’s official World Figure Skating Championships debut. The teams skated four compulsory dances worth 60% of the score and a free dance. For the compulsories they drew Rocker Foxtrot; Westminster; Quickstep; Argentine Tango – the pattern dances were grouped in four classifications: Easy-waltz-fast-slow. All the teams skated on the ice at the same time.
British Ice dancers won the gold and silver medals beginning an almost two decade dominance of the sport.
ICE DANCE EARLY PACESETTERS
One of those teams was Diane Towler & Bernard Ford who began changing the face of ice dance by introducing risky elements in amateur competitions. As innovators in the mid 1960’s, they moved away from the more formal ballroom styles towards creative, theatrical choreography.
In 1966, the duo began their four-year run of British National, European and World Championship titles.
Prior to the closing ceremony at the 1968 Winter Games, Towler & Ford joined teams from the 1967 World Championships to compete at an Olympic ice dance demonstration for the International Olympic Committee.
IOC President Avery Brundage, who initially had thought ice dance was not athletic enough, later described it as “sport, culture, art and beauty and approved it as an official Olympic sport effective at the 1976 Games.
Towler & Ford retired in 1969 after winning their fourth World title. They performed in ice shows until Ford moved to Canada in 1971 and Towler returned to her original ice rink in Streatham, England to coach.
Today she continues to mentor British ice dancers along side her twin daughters Candice and Phillipa, who she trained in the sport as youngsters.
Lyudmila Pakhomova & Aleksandr Gorshkov Soviet Union) won their first international medals in 1969 – silver at the World Championships and bronze at Europeans. In 1970, the year after the British ice dancers retired, the Soviet husband and wife won the first of their five straight World Championship gold medals.
Only six times in the next three decades were Soviet ice dance teams denied the top spot on the World Championship podium.
Coincidentally, it was Jane Torvill & Christopher Dean, another British team who won four of those titles – 1981-1984.
World Figure Skating Hall of Fame inductees: Lyudmila Pakhomova & Aleksandr Gorshkov (1988), Jane Torvill & Christopher Dean (1989), Diane Tower-Green and Bernard Ford (1993).
1976 OLYMPICS
The 1976 Olympic Winter Games were originally awarded to Denver, Colorado USA. However, in November 1972 the city withdrew its acceptance after a referendum to build Olympic facilities was rejected.
The IOC later accepted Innsbruck, Austria’s offer to host the 1976 event.
Ice Dance had been competed internationally at the World Championships for twenty-four years, but never at the Olympics. Finally inside Innsbruck’s Olympiahalle, the figure skating community witnessed its dream.
Lyudmila Pakhomova & Aleksandr Gorshkov’s performance to music composed by Henry Mancini for the movie, Sunflower earned them the first Olympic ice dance gold medal.
Irina Moiseeva & Andrei Minenkov (Soviet Union) won silver; Collene O’Connor & James Millns (USA) were the bronze medalists. The Americans represented the Broadmoor Skating Club in Colorado Springs, CO. just 70 miles South down I-25 from Denver, the original 1976 Winter Olympic Games venue.
ICE DANCE POST-1976
- Soviet/Russian teams won every Olympic Ice Dance gold medal for 30 years (1976-2006).
Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir (2010-CAN), Meryl Davis & Charlie White (2014-USA), Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir (2018-CAN) created a North America Olympic gold medal breakthrough after the thirty year Soviet/Russian Olympic medal dominance.
- French Connection: Ice dancers break Olympic winning streaks twenty years apart. In 2002, Marina Anissina & Gwendal Peizerat end sixteen years of Russian gold medals. In 2022, Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron end twelve years of North American gold medals.
- Jane Torvill & Christopher Dean created one of the most iconic moments in ice dance history with their 1984 Olympic performance of Ravel’s Bolero. The mesmerizing gold medal free dance received 12 perfect 6.0s for artistic impression.
- Russians Oksana Grishuk & Evgeny Platov (1994,1998) and Canadians Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir (2010, 2018) won two Olympic gold medals.
- Soviets Marina Klimova & Sergei Ponomarenko have three Olympic medals – one of each color – bronze (1984), silver (1988), gold (1992). The couples’ son, Anthony Ponomarenko will compete in ice dance with partner Christina Carreira representing the USA at the 2026 Milan Games.
- After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian ice dance coaches and many of their elite students migrated to the U.S. and greatly affected the style and emphasis of the sport.
- Training Centers were created in the USA (Michigan, Delaware, Lake Placid, NY, Philadelphia), Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver) and Europe (Italy, France, Germany, Finland) to provide facilities to further develop ice dance.
Ice Dance is no longer considered too weak for the Olympics. In Milan, Italy beginning on February 6, 2026 the world will see how the discipline has developed since its genesis centuries ago.