Milan, Italy, February 16, 2026: Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara soared to gold in the pairs figure skating at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games on Monday.
Standing in fifth place following an error in the short programme, the reigning world champions came out and gave it all they had. Their powerful performance to “Gladiator” was highlighted by big triple jumps and throws, impressive lifts and spins.
The crowd grew louder and louder as the programme went on, as they realized they were watching history in the making. The Japanese champions set a new record score in the free skating with 158.13 points and totalled 231.24 points to jump on to the top of the podium.
European champions Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava pulled up one spot to claim the silver with 221.75 - Georgia’s first ever medal at the Olympic Winter Games - and overnight leaders Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany earned the bronze with 219.09.
Kihara admitted he was “in despair” after the mistake on the lift in the short programme.
“I didn’t know how to get up again. Even in practice today I couldn’t stop crying but our coaches, team members, my friends in Japan, our supporters in Canada, everybody around me was sending messages of support. Riku said it’s not over yet, that’s why I bounced back,” he said.
Miura added: “Ryuichi didn’t stop crying since the morning and I told him ‘I’m going to skate for you today’ and he said ‘we’re going to skate for each other’. We made a huge mistake yesterday but, in the past seven years, we worked so hard. We both said we’re going to forget what happened and we were determined to start from scratch. We have so many experiences over the past seven years and we’ve grown a lot. That is the reason why we managed to win today.”
The 2022 Olympic champions, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong (CHN), turned in a beautiful performance to “A Tapestry of a Legendary Land” to come fifth on 208.64 points. They confirmed that this was their final performance and they are not continuing to perform on the ice.
“It’s a very memorable experience to stand on the Olympic ice in Milano,” Han said. “We are satisfied because we have already been Olympic champions before, and this time we only had a very short period to prepare. I think just being able to stand here and be satisfied with our performance is already a win.”
In other news on Monday:
*China’s Eileen Gu Ailing won her second silver medal of Milano Cortina 2026 by finishing second in the freestyle skiing women’s big air.
Gu, 22, now has five Olympic medals – two gold and one silver from Beijing 2022 and two silvers here in slopestyle and big air.
Megan Oldham (Canada) won freeski big air gold with 180.75, followed by Gu (179.0) and Flora Tabanelli (Italy) on 178.25.
*Korea’s Kim Gil-li, 21, won bronze in the women’s 1000 metres short track speed skating.