You'll Spin Out Seeing U.S. Olympic Figure Skaters Then & Now

Scott Hamilton

The two-time Olympian won gold in Sarajevo in 1984, the first American man to top the podium since David Jenkins in 1960. Also As a four-time World Champion, Hamilton went on to tour professionally and spent years as a TV commentator for CBS and NBC.

Hamilton spoke candidly about battling testicular cancer after a 1997 diagnosis—"It was after I survived that I felt I could endure anything," he told Coping magazine—and being treated for a recurring benign brain tumor.

"Every time I've gotten knocked down, I've been able to get up," he told People in 2015. "Skating teaches you how to get up, because you fall down a lot. I would urge anybody to weather the storm, because on the other side of it will be something great."

Hamilton and his wife Tracie are parents of four, including two children they adopted from Haiti in 2014.

He also still has the skating costume he wore for his gold-winning performance and showed it off from his home in Tennessee during an appearance on NBC Sports' "Olympic Ice" during the 2022 Beijing Games. 

Hamilton is marking his 10th anniversary at the event by making his return as a commentator at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. 

At the 1988 Calgary Games, the three-time Olympian earned his American flag-appliquéd skates a spot in the National Museum of American History with his gold medal-winning performance, in which he became the first Olympic champion to land all six kinds of triple jumps. (He was already the first skater ever to accomplish the feat during the 1983 World Championships.)

The Californian—who won an Emmy for Outstanding Performance in Classical Music/Dance Programming for Carmen on Ice—got an unexpected but life-changing shout-out in the song "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" in 1999's South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, then hosted the Food Network's What Would Brian Boitano Make?; and had cameos in the movies Ice Princess and Blades of Glory.

When President Barack Obama named him to the U.S. delegation to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, he also took the opportunity to come out as gay, something he told reporters he hadn't necessarily planned to do publicly but was inspired to do as part of the pushback to anti-gay legislation passed in Russia.

"I don't feel that I can represent the country without revealing this incredible side of myself," Boitano said in a statement. "This is an important moment, and to represent my country in Russia, it's a platform that is so important for me."

While he contributed to NBC Sports' coverage for the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Boitano teamed up with USA TODAY columnist Christin Brennan to hold the outlet's Milan Magic video podcast for the 2026 Winter Games.

The 1992 Olympic gold medalist actually first found success as a pairs skater, teaming with Rudy Galindo to win U.S. juniors in 1986 and world juniors in 1988.

But going solo was the move, as her triumph in Albertville would confirm. Afterward, Yamaguchi—who became the first Asian American woman ever to win at the Winter Olympics—toured as a pro for years and founded the Always Dream Foundation, which provides funding for after-school programs and other educational essentials for underprivileged children.

She's made numerous TV and movie cameos, authored a best-selling children's book, released a fitness video, created an active-wear line and, last but not least, in 2006, she became the first Olympic figure skating champion to win Dancing With the Stars.

Yamaguchi has been married to former hockey player Bret Hedican since 2000 (they met-cute at the 1992 Olympics as members of Team USA) and they have two daughters together.

Looking back at her legacy ahead of the 2026 Winter Games, she expressed gratitude for the oppotunrity. “I thank my lucky stars every day that things worked out the way they did,” she told the Nob Hill Gazette. “I can’t imagine how my life would be if it turned out differently.”

Already a bronze medalist at the 1992 Albertville Olympics, Kerrigan couldn't help but end up especially famous after being clubbed in the knee while getting ready for the 1994 U.S. Championship in Detroit, an attack spearheaded by teammate Tonya Harding's ex-husband.

After making a triumphant silver medal showing at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics a month later, Kerrigan's life became a whirlwind of endorsements, hosting Saturday Night Live and other all-star perks (and non-perks, such as being caught on a hot mic calling the Walt Disney World Parade the "corniest thing" she'd ever done).

Kerrigan skated professionally and became a fixture on the speaking circuit, made numerous TV appearances and authored the book Artistry on Ice. In the spring of 2017 she finished sixth on Dancing With the Stars.

During her run on the ballroom competition, Kerrigan opened up about suffering six miscarriages in eight years after she and husband Jerry Solomon welcomed their firstborn, Matthew, in 1996. They went on to welcome son Brian in 2005 and daughter Nicole was born in 2008. 

Ahead of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Kerrigan told NewsNation's Morning in America that, with Brian competing in gymnastics and Nicole in ballet school, she's appreciating her own parents' past support more than ever. 

She still has her skates close, having skated during the 2025 holiday season in Holiday Spectacular on Ice.

OK, maybe not exactly a favorite when she made her second Olympic team in 1994, nor is she exactly a hero today, but thanks to hindsight and a thought-provoking take on her story in the 2017 biopic I, Tonya, Harding isn't a villain anymore either.

After winning the U.S. championship a month prior, she finished a disappointing eighth at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, her long program dramatically interrupted by a broken skate lace. And then in June, her national title was vacated after an investigation into the attack on Nancy Kerrigan found that Harding's ex-husband and several associates were behind the plot to incapacitate her rival enough to keep her off the Olympic team. Harding insisted she knew nothing about it until after the attack had occurred. 

The takes were unkind. For years Harding was relegated to punchline status and did punchline-y things, like make a sex tape, compete in celebrity boxing matches and get arrested for punching her boyfriend (she pleaded guilty and spent three days in jail).

But after Margot Robbie's Oscar-nominated performance as the Portland, Ore.-bred skater, society seemed to unclench a bit. In 2018, Harding finished third on an all-athlete season of Dancing With the Stars and in 2019 won the fifth celebrity edition of Worst Cooks in America, donating her $250,000 prize to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

She's been married to third husband Joseph Price since 2010 and is mom to son Gordon, born in 2011.

The nine-time U.S. champion (tied for the all-time record with the late Maribel Vinson, a 1930s-era Olympian) came up short in her bids for Olympic gold, earning silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002 and then pulling out of the 2006 Games with an injury, but has remained one of the most famous-ever faces of U.S. figure skating.

During the Champions on Ice Tour in 2002 months after the Salt Lake City Olympics, for which she was earning a tour-high $1 million and getting standing ovations, Kwan told the Los Angeles Times of the audience's reception to her, "It's more a reassurance, not like a pity. Reassurance like, 'Hey, you know, it doesn't matter, life's not perfect,' kind of attitude....They realize the pain [of losing]. That's the wrong word. That that's the way life goes sometimes. You have to kind of shrug your shoulders and move on."

With nearly two decades of hindsight under her belt, she told People in 2021, "Getting the opportunity and having the honor to represent the country was something else...There was nothing like it."

Kwan was a campaign surrogate for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and she executive-produced the 2021 YouTube special Recipe for Change.

In 2022, she revealed she had welcomed her first child, a daughter named Kalista Belle Kwan. And in 2025, she announced that she had welcomed her second daughter, Della Rose Kwan.

We know you know exactly where the 1998 Olympic gold medalist is—calling all the figure-skating action alongside Johnny Weir after joining the NBC Sports family in 2013.

"It's like a long-lost soul mate that I met late in life," she told GQ of Weir in 2018. "I can't imagine my life without him."

Lipinski became the youngest-ever world champion at 14 in 1997 before beating all comers at the Nagano Olympics at 15, also the youngest-ever figure skater to win Olympic gold. (She also bested her U.S. teammate and expected frontrunner Michelle Kwan, who finished second.)

"I remember my legs shaking as they called my name and that had never happened before," she recalled to E! News ahead of the Beijing Games. "But to then be able to skate the way that I did, I'll always remember not so much winning, but the moment the music ended and I was running across the ice, just the relief that I felt, the joy that I felt to skate well and have a good showing, but do it in front of millions of people at an Olympic Games."

She met her future husband, producer Todd Kapostasy, when she presented an award to him at the Sports Emmys in 2015, and they tied the knot two years later. They teamed up to produce the 2022 Peacock documentary Meddling, about the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics scoring scandal that resulted in two sets of gold medals being handed out in pairs skating.

Lipinski has since made her reality TV debut with Weird as they compete on season four of Peacock's The Traitors.

Even for the dedicated figure skating fans whose viewing of the sport isn't relegated to the Winter Games every four years, Hughes seemingly came out of nowhere to dominate in Salt Lake City in 2002, winning gold in her Olympic debut with an infectiously joyful long program.

You'd be forgiven for not initially betting on the 16-year-old, though. She was the 1998 U.S. junior champion, but was only the reigning bronze medalist at the 2001 World Championships when she made her first U.S. Olympic team. And even once she got there, she was fourth in the short program. Michelle Kwan, who led heading into the long program, ultimately took bronze.

In fact, Hughes remains the only American woman to have won Olympic figure skating gold but no national or world titles.

She went on to attend Yale, then law school at University of Pennsylvania, and is a practicing attorney in New York. She served as a representative of former first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! Campaign and was part of the U.S. delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018. In 2021, she meticulously documented her experience freezing her eggs on her website, noting that when the process was over, "Really looking forward to getting back on the ice once I get the all-clear."

The 2006 national champion earned silver at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy, and then took three years off from competition—though not from skating, performing on tour and at events such as the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lighting.

She almost made it to Vancouver in 2010, ending up as a team alternate after coming in fourth at the U.S. Championships, but then ultimately retired later that year.

Cohen made numerous TV appearances and she graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with a degree in political science. Having already published a memoir, Fire on Ice, when she was 19, she's been pretty open about the intense pressure she faced while competing.

"As a teenage athlete, you're hyper-focused on making and winning the Olympics, then often forced to retire at an early age," she told US Figure Skating Fan Zone in 2021. "You go from being really good at something in the spotlight with a ton of support, press and sponsorships, to being somebody of yesterday."

Cohen married hedge fund manager Tom May in August 2016 but they divorced in 2018. Celebrating her birthday in October 2019, she wrote on Instagram, "I think I'm a little wiser, more resilient, and closer to figuring out (and prioritizing) the things that really matter in life."  She welcomed son Dashiell with husband Geoffrey Lieberthal in 2020.

Evan Lysacek

Following Brian Boitano's triumph in 1988, U.S. men's figure skating experienced a bit of an Olympics lull, with Paul Wylie's silver in 1992 and Timothy Goebel's bronze in 2002 the only evidence the American fellows were still fielding (rinking?) a team.

After just missing the podium in 2006, finishing fourth, two-time national champion Lysacek ended that gold medal drought in Vancouver in 2010 (where he shared some of the spotlight with his impeccably tailored Vera Wang costumes).

He finished second on Dancing With the Stars that spring and was named the U.S. Olympic Committee's SportsMan of the Year.

After retiring from skating, Lysacek began a career in commercial real estate (he also worked for Wang for a time in New York), and in 2019 married real estate developer Duangpatra Bodiratnangkura in a ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand.

"I cannot express enough how lucky I feel to have found my perfect match in this incredible girl," he told People of his then-fiancée. "She's extraordinary in every way and she makes me a better man."

In 2026, Lysacek was named as part of the U.S. delegation to attend the Opening Ceremony fo the Milan-Cortina Olympics.

The three-time national champion never medaled in his trips to the Olympics in 2006 and 2010, but his glam-rock style out on the ice always swept the honorary gold. 

Hence the combined 17 suitcases Weir said he and longtime NBC broadcasting partner Tara Lipinski brought to Beijing in 2022. "It's not as many as we've brought in the past, so I think we're maturing," he told E!'s Daily Pop. "Or we spend too much time together and I know exactly what's in her closet already."

The duo's chemistry and expertise have made their commentary must-watch parts of the Olympics.

"You give us a screen with figure skating on it, and we'll both be out of our seats," Lipinski told E!. "I will be grabbing his hand."

Off the ice, Weir and Victor Voronov married in 2012 but then messily split up barely two years later. Weir remembered Lipinski being there for him when they worked their first Olympics together in Sochi in 2014.

"I was going through a really nasty divorce, and the only person I had to go through it with me was Tara," he told GQ in 2018. "And for a new friendship, that's a lot to expect somebody to put on her shoulders. But Tara was up with me as long as I needed her to be up with me; she helped push me through work. Somehow, at the same time my life was falling apart, we were crushing it at work, and we were winning hearts across America. That bonded us so quickly."

After earning silver in Vancouver, the six-time national and two-time world champions won the United States' first-ever gold medal in ice dancing in Sochi, where they also shared in team bronze. They may have broken a few shipping hearts when they insisted that they were not a romantic couple, but the longtime partners were over the moon about making history.

Davis won Dancing With the Stars months later and she and White hit the exhibition circuit before ultimately retiring in February 2017. She married retired Russian-Canadian figure skater Fedor Andreev in June 2019, taking their vows in a scenic ceremony in Provence, France.

"We just kept taking deep breaths and trying to take it in because I think that was one of the most impactful moments," the bride told Town & Country. "We'd been dating for a long time and we've loved one another for a long time, and yet the experience of sharing that moment with each other was so beautiful. It's probably my favorite memory ever up to this point."

A little cold, but wedding days will do that to a person, even an Olympic gold medalist.

White married retired Canadian-American ice dancer Tanith Melvin in 2015 and they have a son together. 

The 2016 national champion didn't make the podium skating individually at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, but he did share in the U.S. team's bronze—and glided away with America's heart all the same with his passion, musicality, style, spirited social media posts and general joie de vivre.

He certainly caught Sally Field's son's eye, Sam Greisman tweeting out a snippet of an exchange between he and his Oscar winner mom in which she encouraged him, "Sam... he's insanely pretty. Find a way."

After Pyeongchang, Rippon skated on over to Dancing With the Stars and won the whole thing, and ended up on TIME's list of the "100 Most Influential People of 2018." Ever since he's been balancing his work in entertainment (guest-hosting RuPaul's Drag Race, appearing in Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down" video) and human rights activism.

He married husband Jussi-Pekka Kajaala on Dec. 31, 2021.

Talking about what he wanted to see from the Beijing Olympics, Rippon told E! News in January 2022, "What I hope that the audience remembers is that all these athletes are human and when we talk about them and we celebrate them, that they're going to see the way people talk about them. Just remember that these are people who worked their entire lives for these moments whether it goes the way they want it to or not."

Ahead of the 2026 Olympics, Rippon joined forces with Chase Cain to host this season of the My New Favorite Olympian podcast.

The two-time national champion and CoverGirl spokeswoman shared the bronze with her fellow Americans in the inaugural team event at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. But while she was considered a favorite to make the team again for Pyeongchang in 2018, instead she pressed pause on her career to take time to heal.

She has since become even more well-known for her contributions to the ongoing conversation about the toll this level of competition can take on athletes' mental health. Speaking frankly about her struggles with an eating disorder, anxiety and depression, Gold recalled her lowest moments to the New York Times in 2019, explaining, "You want people to see your pain so they see you need help, but you don't want to ask for help. So you live in this kind of terrible limbo."

Along with Michael Phelps, Lolo Jones, Sasha Cohen and more, Gold participated in the 2020 documentary The Weight of Gold, about the various mental health challenges Olympic athletes face. Her attempt to make the 2022 U.S. Olympic team fell short when she finished 10th at nationals, but Gold joined the fun on Kevin Hart's Winter Olympics Tailgate Party.

The three-time national champion shared team bronze at the 2014 Sochi Olympics but she missed making the U.S. team in 2018—and Wagner didn't hesitate to share her frustration, telling reporters she was "absolutely furious" about her scores at the U.S. Championships that January.

"What you see is what you get with me, and I pride myself on being honest and open," she said afterward on TODAY. "I think at the end of the day, based on the selection criteria, they absolutely made the right call with this team." She still questioned the consistency of the scoring, but ultimately accepted the results.

Recalling being asked how she felt just after finding out the results, Wagner said, "I think that I was just heartbroken. I mean, devastated. I had worked 22 years for that moment, and I had put out something that I felt so proud of."

She married Alex Clark, a middle school science teacher, in 2023. The pair welcomed daughter Rosalie Starbird Clark that same year.

"I never loved skating," Wagner told NBC Sports in 2021. "I saw it as an opportunity, a means to an end. When I was done, I was really done."