Winter Olympics 2026: Figure skating’s exhilarating Gala shows the Olympics at their best 

MILAN — There is the august, solemn majesty of the Olympic Games, a solemn tradition of athletic excellence stretching back centuries. And then there was Saturday night at the Assago Ice Skating Arena, where Kung-Fu Panda fought Deadpool and Sub-Zero on ice as Tenacious D played overhead and Jackie Chan looked on from rinkside. 

The Olympics truly contain multitudes. 

Saturday night, figure skating’s stars and medal winners gathered for one last time in Milan, bidding farewell to the Games in what’s become a beloved tradition: the Olympic Gala. Part performance, part celebration, it’s like figure skating’s version of the home run derby or the slam-dunk contest, a glorious exhibition of the world’s best at the peak of their powers. 

The Gala was pure entertainment, mixing axels and loops and even a few backflips with exotic costumes — like the panda outfit gold medal winner Mikhail Shaidorov wore for his entire routine — and some very un-skatery songs, like Guns n’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” and the Mortal Kombat theme song. 

For some, like Alysa Liu, this was a moment to express pure joy, to revel in the happiness of a life-changing gold medal. For others, like Ilia Malinin and Amber Glenn — both of whom missed out on expected individual medals thanks to untimely miscues — the Gala offered a chance to exorcise some demons in front of the world. 

Glenn, her hair down and flowing, skated to Lady Gaga’s cover of “That’s Life” — a singularly appropriate song of acceptance, defiance and resolution. Malinin, covering his head in a baggy hoodie, skated — and backflipped — to NF’s “FEAR,” a song of desolation with a closing refrain of “Is this what you wanted?” repeated over and over. Whether this was a statement of purpose, or whether Malinin wanted his fans to think it was a statement of purpose, only he knows for sure. The overall effect for both skaters, though, was that of releasing ghosts, of leaving Milan in Milan. 

The Gala closed with a spectacular finale — every single invited skater on the ice at once, skating in a community unbound by nationality. The women twirled, the pairs paralleled one another, the adventurous men backflipped while the comedians faked wipeouts. As an orchestral, uplifting version of “Viva La Vida” played, they gathered as one, posing for a once-in-a-lifetime, hold-this-moment selfie. 

The Gala represented the very best of what skating can be, delirious happiness at the sheer pleasure of gliding over — and leaping above — the ice. Olympic skating has so many deep-rooted problems, from its still-controversial judging to many coaches’ undue influence on young skaters to the looming threat of the return of Russia … but on this night, for these 150 minutes, skaters and fans alike set aside those concerns and focused on the joy that brought them together in the first place. 

Widen the lens a bit, and you can see how this fits in the full Olympic picture. The Assago Ice Skating Arena is in a dull, nondescript area of South Milan, right next to a highway and near a mall and a gray office park. The building itself looks like the headquarters of a ‘70s-era Bond villain, all concrete and strangely shaped concourses. The majesty of the Duomo is a long way away. And even so, during these Games, there was transcendent beauty and grace within. 

The Olympics have their own flaws — honestly, to call them “flaws” undersells them. Corruption, greed, strong-arming with one hand and cozying up to autocracies with the other … the Olympic movement is one that’s so deeply scarred and stained it’s fair to wonder whether the entire enterprise can be saved … or if it’s worth saving at all. 

And then you see something like Saturday night — not the Deadpool and Kung Fu Panda part, the unified finale part — and you realize that the Olympics bring together cultures and countries in a way that nothing else can today. You see fans from so many nations cheering skaters from so many nations, everyone side by side, and just for a moment, everything the Olympics claims to be, it truly is.  

At their worst, the Olympics reflect our most base, greedy selves. But at their best, like on Saturday night … they fly.