What were your biggest disappointments this season?

[labgoat]

What were your biggest disappointments this season ?

The fact that we have a thread like this. Life happens - few win, many more do not. But pour a bit more acid into the open wounds for skaters who worked a lifetime for this event. Not everyone will peak at the Games, sometimes failure is the best teacher - respect the journey. The strong will pick themselves up and move on to their next goals on or off the ice and deserve to hold their heads high. If you qualified to be here - you are all winners in my book.

Blessings and kindness to you in your own lives. Give grace to yourselves and others.
We need it badly in the world at this time.

 

[yfan1]

Having only three programs that were particularly well choreographed, IMO. And zero long programs, at that.

 

[Johar]

Vladimir Litvintsev not advancing to the Free at the Olympics and Worlds. I really wanted to see his Joker routine.

Chock and Bates not winning Gold.

Ilia Malinin not showing us what he can really do in the Free.

Kaori Sakamoto not winning individual Gold at the Olympics.

 

[Mathman]

I have to say that I did not have any major grief over the 2025-26 season outcomes. A couple of surprises: I certainly did not expect Ilia Malinin to bomb his Olympic LP, and I did expect Adelia Petrosian to bring her big tech and contend for a medal. On the other hand, lots of people don't have an Olympic Gold Medal, yet are able to regroup and go on to new adventures, both sports-wise and otherwise.

Jason Brown was mentioned in the very first response on this thread. To me, yes, it would have been nice for him to have gotten his big Thanks for the Memories party, but that disappointment was ameliorated by the fact that the U.S. skaters who went to the Olympics and Worlds in his place had their own memorable experiences at the big shows, and acquitted themselves well.

 

[Fetinia]

1. Ilya Malinin on 8th place instead of OGM. No second, not third, eights!
2. Kaori Sakamoto not winning OGM.
3. Men's free event where only 2 or 3 skaters were clean or cleanish. At least the champion was clean.
4. Kaori Sakamoto retiring.
5. Adeliya Petrosyan and Petr Gumennik not being able to show their full potential on OG due to various reason (music rights, injury right before the games, pressure of representing a "pariah state" etc.)
6. Hungarians not winning Olympic medal despite the only pair skating clean both programs.
7. Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov not being able to secure US citizenship for Alisa.
9.Tashler siblings disappointing placement on their home Worlds.
9. Not being able to see Vladimir Litvintsev quirky "Joker" program either on OG or Worlds
10. The biggest disappointment is... the season is OVER!

 

[yelyoh]

Amber on both counts
Kaori no Oly gold and retiring
Ilya's Oly FS meltdown (never did I ever)
Donovan's FS at Worlds
Emily and Spencer FS at Worlds
Julia Sauter's Worlds after that Oly+
and more....

I for one am GLAD this season is over. Almost too much. But here's to next season One of us has to get famous enough to go on The View or whatever and talk up FSing!!! We need more fans and more clout!!

 

[Zora]

Kaori not winning gold at the Olympics, even though I kind of expected that to happen. But in the end, she celebrated her retirement with a gold medal at worlds and that was a really beautiful moment. We wouldn't have had that without her silver medal at the Olympics.

This one might be an unpopular opinion, but I was really disappointed to see Alysa win gold with the exact same set of programs she won worlds with last year. She had two new free programs and couldn't win with those and switched back to her old program twice. (I know she had to ditch her sp for other reasons). I don't know, I didn't like this and found this disappointing.

There was finally an ice dance program I really, really loved, and it couldn't win gold. I'm usually not really an ice dance fan. Talking about C/B!

 

[meem]

The ID judging at the Olympics. Jezebel needs to be banned from ever judging again.

 

[TallyT]

Oh, and the Olympics men's event except for Mikhail (thank god he was there with his inspiring small fed comes through story) and Shun. The rest of our sports' 'best in the world', there was so much declining and falling all over the place that once-a-quad viewers must have wondered if the real best were on vacation that week!

And judging in all disciplines is less a disappointment than a case of 'why bother watching if they don't?' But hey, that is nothing new.......

 

[skatedreamer]

What were your biggest disappointments this season ?

The fact that we have a thread like this. Life happens - few win, many more do not. But pour a bit more acid into the open wounds for skaters who worked a lifetime for this event. Not everyone will peak at the Games, sometimes failure is the best teacher - respect the journey. The strong will pick themselves up and move on to their next goals on or off the ice and deserve to hold their heads high. If you qualified to be here - you are all winners in my book.

Blessings and kindness to you in your own lives. Give grace to yourselves and others.
We need it badly in the world at this time.

Beautifully said, Labgoat. I'd give this at least 1000 likes if GS would let me, and that's just for starters. No kidding!

 

[reader3]

Ilia not winning an Olympic Medal.

Junhwan not going to Worlds.

 

[noskates]

I really didn't have any disappointments. Yes there were skaters who I wish had placed differently but that's competition. I'm horrible at picking who is going to be in the top 5 and think I pick with my heart rather than my mind. What I really found encouraging was the fact that different countries than the usual had some success. And success isn't just a gold medal - in some cases it's making the free skate or ending up in the top10. As long as there is no overt cheating - I'm happy with the results and can hardly wait until next season starts.

 

[dearskate]

Roman Sadovsky just missing out on The Olympics and Worlds despite an incredibly wonderful and emotional free skate at Canadian Nationals.

Junhwan missing Worlds

 

[Ivana]

There was not a single skater that dissapointed me, I was sad for some for sure, but not dissapointed. I believe they all step on the ice ready to show their best, if they make a mistake it just proves that they are humans, we all make mistakes, some cost us medals, some costs us Olympics participation, some costs us advancing to free skate, and if that happened no one was more disspointed than the skater themself. I mean for example, if Kaori won the gold that everyone predicted for her, she would have never gone to Worlds. If she never went to Worlds there would never have been those two great performances and those long minutes after her free skate when the whole arena was on their feet crying with her and applauding her since her last spin until the marks came on and afterwards, I think that was the best send off to retirement and acknowledgement of her amazing careeer she could have had.

What I was disspointed with this season was ice dance as a whole. Disastrous rhythm dance theme, judging shenigans that fully started with Grand Prix in France and continued in every single competition since, the picking of the less evil of the two for Olympic champion, it was just not a good season for ice dance, as my father noted after watching the free dance at Worlds "I liked the Brits, the rest gave me depression", I had more faves, but the depression comment summs up this ice dance season nicely.

Finally what disappoints me the most in figure skating is that even in 2026, the victims of abuse are still not heard, but silenced one way or another. The unwillingness of majority of the figure skating world (active skaters, former skaters, ISU, federations and fans) to acknowledge that there is an issue, step up and make a meaningful change in the culture and not just speak empty words when another scandal pops up only to quiet down once the storm ends and then promptly continue to support abusers because they bring in results, views and popularity.

 

[Mathman]

This is an interesting thread. Invited to list disappointments, many of us seem to think that all in all, it was a pretty good year.

"Regrets?... We have a few... But then again... too few to mention..."

 

[Diana Delafield]

I hadn't thought about this until now, but I always like the look of Chan and Howe on the ice, visually or aesthetically or however you want to put it, so I was disappointed for their sake when they went to pieces at Worlds, after the Fates had conspired to get them to the big stages this year in spite of their injury history.

 

[NYscorp6]

Ilia Malinin not winning Olympic Gold.
Chock & Bates not winning Olympic Gold.
Also, I did miss the Russian pair skaters.

I fear Ice Dance judging going in reverse with the outcome predetermined for a certain pair before anyone hits the ice.
The exception was Zingas & Kolesnik who had a wonderful season. Bravo, well done!!

 

[cocteautwin]

- judging (always has to be the first; I could write an essay but basically it's the lack of consistency, biased judging, PR influneced marks and useless PCS scoring)
- RD music choices (90s had so much more to offer)
- too much recycling (I know it's a thing in the olympic season but it was a lot and some promising concepts were ditched too early)
- AI music (please, let's not go this way) and so many music rights issues
- The Choreographic Character Step Sequences (I can't wait to see The Creative Dance Element monsters next season)
- all the wonderful Japanese girls not making the olympics (Wakaba, Rinka, Yuna, Mako, Rion, Rino etc)
- Chinese ice dance team being pushed above stronger teams at olympic qualifying event
- Chaeyeon not making the olympic team
- ISU adressing all the wrong things for future changes but not the real issues
- "fans" bullying skaters (e.g. Kao after 4CC, Natalie Taschlerova receiving body shaming comments etc.)
- some federations torturing their skaters who qualified olympic spots with idiotic made up score requirements

*There's also politics related stuff like the "neutral athletes" discourse, no sanction towards other countries committing war crimes but since this world is a huge dissapointment in general and politics makes me feel more and more hopeless I leave it out, it's too huge and sensitive topic for this thread.

 

[FlyingFeather]

In no particular order:

• Fabri/Ayer split. Was just this season becoming a fan of theirs. Though if they both find good partners and Ayer comes back with ID for Mexico , that'll make up for it.
• Isabeau not medaling at Worlds.
• The RD theme-but that should make the golden waltz that much sweeter! I really felt bad for all the dancers this season. Felt like a bunch of adults who have dedicated themselves to true artistry trying their best to act like teenagers to appease the judges. They all gave it their best shot, so kudos to them all!
• Adam not capitalizing on mistakes to get an Olympic medal. I actually love that Misha got the gold, but I hoped Adam would perhaps snag the bronze.
• Finland ID losing a spot for their home worlds!!!!
• US pairs--not wholly a disappointment; they had some very good moments, but still a lot of long term uncertainty. The other US disciplines seem set for the foreseeable future.
• The biggest--Kaori not getting Olympic gold! And I love Alysa. But I think she would have been thrilled with silver and Kaori only lost the gold because of a mistake, which is a heartbreaking thing to come to terms with. But I think the FS community has done a great job showing her the respect and love that she deserves as a luminary of this wonderful sport.

 

[Arigato]

Not having heard the Wuthering Heights soundtrack before Piper and Paul's FD at 2026 Worlds.