Figure skating at the 1928 Winter Olympics

Lore & Background

The figure skating events were held outdoors at the Olympic Ice Rink in St. Moritz. Unseasonably warm weather threatened the competition, leading to a proposal to move the events to an indoor rink in Berlin or London. However, colder weather returned before a decision could be made, though the ice surface remained in poor condition throughout the Games. During the ladies' free skating, red flags were placed on the ice to mark especially bad areas, which became more numerous as the competition progressed.

Reader's Guide

The 1928 Winter Olympics figure skating competition is notable for the challenging weather conditions that affected the outdoor ice surface. The event saw participation from 51 skaters representing 11 nations, with Austria winning multiple medals but no gold. Twelve skaters (seven men and five ladies) competed in both singles and pairs events. The competition highlighted the vulnerability of outdoor ice rinks to weather, a concern that would later drive the shift to indoor venues for major figure skating events.

Did You Know?

• Unseasonably warm weather caused poor ice conditions at the outdoor Olympic Ice Rink.
• There was a proposal to move the competition to an indoor rink in Berlin or London, but colder weather returned before a decision.
• Austria was the only nation to win more than one medal, but did not win a gold medal.

A Century on the Olympic Ice

Figure skating has occupied the Olympic program since the 1908 Summer Games, making it one of the sport's longest-continuous disciplines. Across twenty-six Olympic Games, athletes representing thirty National Olympic Committees have collected a total of three hundred and one medals, split almost evenly into one hundred and one gold, one hundred silver, and one hundred bronze. The competitive structure has shifted over time. Six distinct events have been contested throughout the Games' history, though men's special figures was held only once, in 1908, before being retired from the program. The modern Olympic figure skating schedule now features five medal events: men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, ice dance, and the team event. That final discipline, first staged at the 2014 Games, is the newest addition and weaves all four individual events into a single national contest decided by cumulative placement points. The result is a program whose arc stretches from a single early-twentieth-century exhibition to a multifaceted competition spanning well over a century of winter sport.

Records of Unmatched Dominance

No skaters have amassed more Olympic medals than Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, whose five medals—three gold and two silver—remain a singular benchmark in the sport. A small circle of competitors has reached four Olympic medals: Sweden's Gillis Grafström, Russia's Evgeni Plushenko, and Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and Kaori Sakamoto. Winning three consecutive Olympic titles in the same discipline is an even rarer accomplishment, achieved by only three figures in history: Grafström in men's singles, Norway's Sonja Henie in women's singles, and the Soviet Union's Irina Rodnina in pair skating. In ice dance, the longest consecutive-title streak is two, reached by Oksana Grishuk with Evgeny Platov and by Guillaume Cizeron, who uniquely accomplished the feat with two different partners. At the level of a single Games, only Nathan Chen and Alysa Liu of the United States, along with Virtue and Moir, have won two gold medals at the same Olympics, a mark that highlights just how extraordinary multi-event success remains in this discipline.

Scandals That Reshaped the Podium

Olympic figure skating has endured several controversies that permanently altered its official records. At the 1964 Games, German pair skaters Marika Kilius and Hans-Jürgen Bäumler were stripped of their silver after it emerged they had signed a professional contract before competing. Canada's Debbi Wilkes and Guy Revell and the American duo Vivian and Ronald Joseph were promoted to silver and bronze. In 1987 the German pair reclaimed their silver on appeal, and by 2014 the IOC had declared both the German and Canadian teams joint silver medalists, with the Americans holding bronze. A far more dramatic scandal erupted at the 2002 Games, where French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne was accused of participating in a vote-swapping arrangement with a Russian ice dance judge. Her scores were discarded, Canada's Jamie Salé and David Pelletier were elevated to gold, and Russia's Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze were permitted to retain their own gold. Le Gougne and French federation president Didier Gailhaguet each received three-year suspensions and were barred from any official role at the 2006 Games.

The Valieva Affair and a Delayed Medal Ceremony

The team event, first introduced at the 2014 Games, combines men's singles, women's singles, pairs, and ice dance into one national contest decided by cumulative placement points. Its second edition, at the 2022 Games, became the most contentious in Olympic figure skating history. Russian skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine in a December 2021 sample, a result officially confirmed in February 2022. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency, itself under WADA suspension since 2015, cleared her on February 9, prompting appeals from the IOC, WADA, and the ISU. The Court of Arbitration for Sport initially permitted her to compete in the individual event, citing her status as a minor. However, on January 29, 2024, CAS disqualified Valieva for four years, ruling the positive constituted an anti-doping violation. The following day, the ISU subtracted her points from Russia's team total and re-allocated the medals: the United States and Japan were upgraded to gold and silver, while Russia was downgraded to bronze. The American and Japanese teams finally received their medals on August 7, 2024, at a ceremony in Paris during the Summer Olympics.