Data Deep Dive: Is the Olympic Team Event Trouble?
Over 80% of skaters/teams who did both segments of the Olympic team event had major errors in their individual event. What else does the data tell us?
After Ilia Malinin faltered in the men’s figure skating free skate at the 2026 Winter Olympics last Friday, everyone has been coming for the Olympic team event. Doing four programs in a week’s time is too much, they bellowed. The U.S. should have subbed another men’s skater in! The team event should come after the individual events! The team event should be eliminated!
I didn’t think to look at the data until after Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea’s free skate, on Monday, which was the total opposite of their individual short program and team event skates. I think because I still thought that there was a mismanagement or other issue with Malinin dating back earlier in the season to cause his individual event issues, and I didn’t blame it all on the team event. But once Kam and O’Shea had a rough skate, I thought, “Wait, there might be something here.”
So, I did what any person with a moderate understanding of Excel or Google Sheets would do: I made a spreadsheet.1
This is far from the final analysis of this data, because we have yet to have the women’s free skate. Even without that data, it leads to interesting conclusions against the inclusion of a team event at the Olympics or calls for a change in its timing or rules.
Forty-three skaters or teams participated in the team event from February 6-8. Thirty-nine did the short program/rhythm dance, and 20 did the free skate. Of the 43, only 16 did both segments of the team event for their country.
Participation in the team event led to a marked difference in scoring in a skater or team’s individual event. It also led to an increased odds that a skater or team would have a major error.
Over 55% of skaters and teams who participated in the team event had a major error (a fall or an element that received a significant -GOE across the entire judging panel) in either segment of their individual event.
If you participated in both segments of the team event, the odds were not in your favor. Before taking into account the women’s free skate, a whopping 82% of skaters/teams who did both segments of the team event went on to have a major error in their individual event.
Without accounting for the women’s free skate, 54% percent of those skaters who made it to the team free skate scored higher in the team event free skate than their individual event free skate. When you look at the short program, 38% of skaters performed better in the team short than the individual short.
If you participated in both segments of the team event, the odds were okay, not great, that you would score lower in your individual event. In the individual short program/rhythm dance, 44% of the 16 skaters/teams who skated both team segments saw a lower score. In the individual free skate, 33% of those 12 who have skated so far saw lower free skate scores.
This is far from complete, because any true analysis will have to look at trends by Olympics. Is the 2026 Winter Olympics alone in this trend, or will we see similar ones in 2014, 2018 and 2022? That is next on my to-do list.
After messaging with the Kingdom of Ice-olation’s author, Adam Reisinger, who also balances a love of skating with work in other sports, I believe the best way to explain to non-skating fans why these trends might be the way they are would be to liken it to the NFL. To skate in an Olympic team event and individual event in the same week is akin to playing two Super Bowls in a row, or having just five days between the NFC/AFC Championship Games and the Super Bowl instead of two weeks.
For fans of other sports, it’s like when you have a tight championship series and a Game 7 is forced. You see some fatigue and errors you might not have seen earlier in the series.
There is immense pressure to make the most of the team event opportunity, but also enormous pressure to make the most of your individual Olympic moment. We now know both qualitative and quantitatively that the Olympic team event needs to change, but in what direction will it go?
(If I have any data issues or if you have suggestions, please reach out in the comments or to katcornetta@gmail.com.)
Kat Cornetta is a freelance writer covering women’s college hockey and Olympic sports, most recently for the Boston Globe. She has also written for the Boston Herald, New England Hockey Journal, New England Lacrosse Journal, and the Newburyport Daily News. When she is not writing, she works in education and chases two young children. Follow her skating work on the Edges and Execution Substack at katcornetta.substack.com and her women’s hockey work on the Captain’s Practices Substack at womenscollegehockey.substack.com.
My husband asked me, “What the heck are you doing?” no less than six times while I was working on this. He doesn’t like math.
Very into this nerdy data. Also curious to know if these same skaters were making similar mistakes throughout the season or performing really out of character. Like Maddie Schizas clearly did better in the Team Event than the Individual Event... but she has had kind of sketchy jumps all season. So was her short program in the Individual Event related to her Team Event performance?
That said... I do think they should do it at the end of the Olympics rather than the beginning, if they do it at all. Or maybe there should be Team Event specialists. Like you are specifically selected to go to the Olympics for the Team Event, though most countries would not have enough skaters to field both individual and team events. But it would certainly solve the problem of too many great Japanese Women, not enough Olympic spots.
This was a great piece. I’d be interested what the data say for 2014, 2018 and 2022