BEIJING — The ice dancing partnership between Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, now in its final season, reached its pinnacle as the skaters finished their program, sharing a long embrace and then taking turns patting the ice in the center of the Olympic rings logo, as though they needed to thank this surface for all it has given them here.
“It’s honestly just a moment of appreciation,” Donohue said.
Before leaving the ice, Hubbell saw her coach give a twirling motion with her finger, so Hubbell spun around for one final look at the rink, and then they waited for their free dance score to be announced. Two teams still had to skate, but their mark was enough for an Olympic ice dance medal, one of the only major accomplishments they hadn’t yet achieved in their long careers. The next two pairs earned better totals, so Hubbell and Donohue’s 218.02 turned out to be the bronze-winning score. And for them, that was plenty, especially after missing the podium at the Games four years ago.
Hubbell and Donohue’s work together has lasted more than a decade and included three world championship medals, a fourth-place disappointment at the last Olympics, an off-ice relationship and subsequent breakup but then a commitment to keep skating together, and now finally a medal in their second trip to the Games.
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The United States has medaled in ice dance at five straight Olympics, and Hubbell and Donohue’s closest podium challenger here was a duo they’ve regularly faced back home for years. The Hubbell-Donohue partnership has shared the top tier of American ice dancing with Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who won the national title last month. Chock and Bates placed fourth in Beijing, unable to recover from a mistake in Saturday’s rhythm dance despite a magnificent free dance program.
France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, the 2018 Olympic silver medalists and four-time world champions, entered as the favorites for gold and rose to meet those expectations. With Papadakis wearing a sparkly gold dress that will match her medal, the duo delivered a free dance that brought the other athletes in the stands to their feet. They finished with a score of 226.98 after earning the top marks in each program.
“For years, this was the only medal that we wanted, and the past four years were just about that moment,” Papadakis said.
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Cizeron became the first openly gay Olympic figure skating gold medalist in an individual event, and the French dancers secured the title by a considerable margin. The Russian Olympic Committee’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, the reigning world champions, won the silver with a 220.51.
Hubbell and Donohue entered the free dance portion of the competition in third, just as they did in 2018. But this time, they had a much larger cushion of about three points, and they delivered a solid free dance. Four years ago, the pair had a mistake in the free dance and slipped to fourth. Hubbell said she cried for two days before deciding to take pride in their respectable finish, and since then, the tandem has won medals at three straight world championships, all building to this moment in Beijing.
“There’s something unique about an Olympic medal, but part of our decision of retiring after this year was because we were already very satisfied with what we had accomplished on the world stage,” said Hubbell, who added that she and Donohue plan to compete at this season’s world championships.
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Hubbell and Donohue have skated together since 2011 — and soon after, they began dating, a relationship that lasted two-and-a-half years. Even after breaking up, they maintained their on-ice partnership and have thrived together. As their career reaches its end, they still focus on what Donohue described as an “exhilarating” connection that has never been stronger, rather than their scores and medal hopes.
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“When we move our best, we’re not thinking about matching,” Hubbell said after their strong rhythm dance. “We just match. … We speak to each other through the program with the way that we're touching, the way that we're looking at each other.”
When Hubbell and Donohue skated on tour, 2014 ice dance gold medalist Meryl Davis complimented how the duo seemed to stay in sync, even when Donohue jumped off the script. Before stepping onto the ice at competition, they hone in on that connection by holding hands, meditating together and “heart-to-heart exercises,” which both jokingly described as a trade secret without sharing more specifics. This is their route toward skating to their potential, and it allows for some improvisation.
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“Not everybody likes to live on the edge, but for us, that’s our charm,” Hubbell said. “I think Zach’s the best ice dancer in the world. He thinks I’m the best ice dancer in the world. And that adoration, that love for each other, that power that we can share is something special. We’ve learned over the last four years how to harness it the best.”
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They’ve been climbing toward this Olympic medal after the fourth-place finish in PyeongChang. Here in Beijing, they had to outperform Chock and Bates. A mistake in the rhythm dance, when Chock slipped slightly while skating a compulsory pattern, distanced them from Hubbell and Donohue. Both entered with the potential to earn a medal, but with the strong performances from the top French and Russian tandems, it seemed unlikely that two U.S. duos could leave Beijing with ice dance medals.
Chock and Bates, who have a silver from the team event, performed a strong free dance meant to tell the love story between an extraterrestrial and an astronaut for a total score of 214.77. As the next athletes to compete, Hubbell said she noticed that their American teammates seemed pleased with their performance. Hubbell said her coach told her: “Go do your job, and you’ll be magical. You know how to do that.”
After their excellent program, Hubbell and Donohue soaked in the moment, but they still weren’t entirely sure whether they had clinched a medal. But moments later, their score confirmed that they had a guaranteed spot on the podium. They celebrated with plush panda mascots and American flags on the ice, with Hubbell, before leaving the arena, already counting down the hours until Monday night’s medal ceremony.
Some people close to the duo questioned Hubbell and Donohue’s decision to divulge their plans to retire after this season because that would ratchet up the attention and the emotions involved. But they believed doing so would help them appreciate the season, and now, Hubbell said, “We’re leaving at our happiest, at our most successful, at our peak in every way.”
