Watch the 2026 Winter Olympics on NBC and Peacock.

From one Games to the next, Figure Skating reigns at the top of the charts as one of the most popular and most-watched Winter Olympic events. Combining athleticism and artistry into amazing skating set pieces that showcase each athlete’s unique personality and talent, it’s an Olympic sport that seems tailor-made for TV viewing.

It’s no surprise that this year’s competitive slate of Figure Skating events have captivated fans all over the world as the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games gets underway. Featuring established stars like World Champion Ilia Malinin of Team USA, Japan’s Sakamoto Kaori (a three-time World Champion), and the real-life husband-and-wife U.S. duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates, it’s a chance to watch the best of the best write the next chapter in their athletic careers — and it’s all unfolding live on NBC and Peacock. 

Whether you’re a casual viewer or an avid fan, it’s easy to be mesmerized by the pageantry, athletic prowess, and inspiring personal stories of the figure skaters who compete at the Olympic Games. But knowing a thing or two about how the sport actually works can only help enrich the experience. That’s where this handy guide to Figure Skating at the 2026 Winter Games can come in handy — so keep on scrolling for all you need to know!

RELATED: Meet the Olympians: What to Know about Team USA Ice Dancers Madison Chock & Evan Bates

Madison Chock and Evan Bates compete in the Championship Ice Dance Free Dance during the 2026 United States Figure Skating Championships at Enterprise Center on January 10, 2026 in St Louis, Missouri. 

There are five competitive Figure Skating events at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, and NBC Sports will feature each of them during its coverage across NBC and Peacock. Below is a listing of all five Olympic Figure Skating events: 

Men’s singles

Women’s singles

Pairs

Ice dance 

Team event

The Men’s and Women’s Singles events are exactly what they sound like: Individual skaters performing choreographed skating routines that feature head-spinning jumps and technical feats — all backdropped, of course, by music and dance-like expressiveness that makes each skater’s routine amount to more than the sum of its technical parts. 

Duos of one male and one female athlete represent their home countries in the Olympics’ Pairs and Ice Dance events — though the two events differ in the type of moves they include. 

Pairs provides a showcase for skaters’ skill and power with synchronized jumps, spins, and impressive throws and overhead lifts. Ice Dance — a newer Olympic sport since first debuting in 1976 — leans more heavily into artistry and choreography, while still assessing skaters’ technical performance through step sequences, spins, and “twizzles” — in which each duo executes synchronized traveling spins. 

The Team event in Olympic Figure Skating consist of eight distinct event segments: Men's Short program, Men's Free Skate, Women's Short program, Women's Free Skate, Pairs Short program, Pairs Free Skate, Ice Dance Rhythm Dance, and Ice Dance Free Dance. Points are awarded separately for each segment, before being added at the end for a team’s combined final score.

RELATED: Meet the Olympians: What to Know about Team USA Figure Skater Ilia Malinin

Stream the 2026 Olympic Winter Games on Peacock!

The 2026 Olympic Winter Games take place February 6-22 in Milan, and you can watch them all on Peacock. Anywhere. Any time.  

Every event in the Games — yes, every one! — is streaming live and on-demand on Peacock.  And with features like Multiview and Rinkside Live, you're not just watching the competition: You're experiencing it.  

Visit the Olympics hub on Peacock to access these features during the Games:  

Multiview: Stream multiple live Olympic events on one screen simultaneously. With Discovery Multiview, watch up to four different events at once; with Traditional Multiview, focus on the action within one sport (e.g. curling or hockey).  

Rinkside Live: An immersive viewing mode for figure skating and hockey, featuring an interactive, mobile-first view with multiple camera angles and live highlights that give fans complete control over their Olympics experience. 

Can't Miss Highlights: Swipe through vertical stories to get quick recaps of the Games, athlete stories, and other big moments, only on the Peacock mobile app. 

Prediction Games: Guess outcomes, track results, and more, only on the Peacock mobile app. Test your Olympics knowledge with trivia questions on history, sports, athletes, and interesting facts.  

Got more questions about the 2026 Olympic Winter Games? OLI, NBCUniversal’s AI-powered Olympic guide, has answers. Read more about OLI here.  

Sign up for Peacock now to make sure you're not missing a second of the 2026 Olympics! 

Ilia Malinin of the United states of America carries the USA flag as he skates with his gold medal after competing in the Men's Free Program during the ISU World Figure Skating Championships at the Bell Centre on March 23, 2024.

Figure Skating at the Olympics is governed by a pretty complex set of rules and scoring metrics overseen by the International Judging System (IJS). In each Figure Skating event, points are awarded to athletes based on how they execute a predetermined set of moves (known as “elements”), with scoring responsibility divided between two groups: the technical panel and the judges. 

The technical panel keeps track of a program’s elements (moves that can include spins, jumps, and step sequences), and then assigns each element a difficulty rating. A panel of judges then assesses how skaters perform as they execute each element, adding or deducting points (within a range from -5 to +5) from that element’s base point value to arrive at a routine’s technical element score (TES). 

An element’s difficulty plays a big role in determining an overall technical score: “Each of the elements the technical panel calls has a specified base value as dictated by a predetermined scale of values,” explains NBC Olympics’ Figure Skating page. “For example, a double (two rotations in the air) toe loop jump has a base value of 1.3 points, meanwhile a quad (four rotations in the air) axel has a base value of 12.5.”

The judges’ panel also scores each routine’s “program components,” which is where each athlete’s artistry and more subjective, expressive performance comes into play. Program components are judged across five categories to arrive at a program component score (PCS), and, via NBC Olympics, the categories include the following:

Skating Skills (edge control, speed across the ice, power, and the use of turns and change of direction)

Transitions (the linking of elements with intricate and varied movements)

Performance (as the name suggests, skaters are judged for their connection to the audience, music and choreography)

Composition (the arrangement of all elements and transitions within the music and choreography

Interpretation of the Music (similar to performance, with an emphasis on creativity and interpretation as it relates to the music)

To deliver an overall score — known as a “total segment score” — a skater’s final TES score is added to their final PCS score (which is multiplied by a factor in order to give it equal weight alongside the TES score). 

Figure Skating events also includes rule requirements that can result in penalties to a skater’s points score. Falls, costume violations, spending too much time (or too little) on an element, or pausing for too long during a routine each can incur a points penalty, which is deducted from a skater’s total segment score. 

RELATED: How to Watch Olympic Figure Skating – The Complete Winter 2026 Schedule

Check out the full schedule of Figure Skating events at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games here.

All throughout the Winter Olympic Games, NBC and Peacock will present live and curated coverage of Olympic events alongside special features and field reports (from correspondents like Stanley Tucci and Snoop Dogg) — plus each day’s highlights and big Team USA moments on Primetime in Milan, NBC’s nightly recap show hosted by Mike Tirico. 

Miss a live event from Milan Cortina? Dial up Peacock’s Olympics stream — where you can catch up on each Winter Olympics event anytime on demand!