Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik turned in the performance of their careers at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, finishing fifth in ice dance with personal-best scores in both the rhythm dance and free dance. It capped a season that also included a U.S. Championships silver medal and a Four Continents title, cementing the Michigan-trained pair as one of the sport's fastest-rising teams.
A Breakout Season On and Off the Ice
According to Team USA, Zingas and Kolesnik won silver at the 2026 U.S. Championships with a personal-best score of 213.65, a result that locked in their spots on the U.S. Olympic team. That finish came at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis on January 10, 2026, where the pair celebrated after securing the podium spot, as documented by Freep.com. From there, the duo carried that momentum into the Olympic season, where NBC Sports described their Milan result as an unexpectedly high fifth place.
Zingas and Kolesnik are a couple both on and off the ice, training together at a rink in suburban Detroit, according to the NBC Sports profile of the team. They won bronze at the 2026 World Championships.
Gold at Four Continents, Then a U.S. Podium Sweep
Before the Olympics, Zingas and Kolesnik won gold at the 2026 Four Continents Championships, posting a personal-best 122.89 points in the free dance and a total score of 202.86, per isu-skating.com. Their win helped the United States sweep the entire ice dance podium at that event, with Caroline Green and Michael Parsons taking silver and Oona Brown and Gage Brown taking bronze.
It marked just the second time U.S. ice dance teams have swept the Four Continents podium, with the only previous occurrence coming in 2005, according to the same ISU report. That kind of depth across the American ice dance field underscores why Zingas and Kolesnik's rise has drawn attention beyond their own results.
From Singles Skating to an International Partnership
Zingas first stepped onto the ice at age 5 and later competed internationally as a singles skater. She began her ice dance partnership with Kolesnik in March 2022, and the two made their international debut later that year at the Golden Spin of Zagreb, where they won bronze.
The single-session tickets for championship-level events at the 2027 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships went on sale October 5, 2026, according to a press release from U.S. Figure Skating. As reported by Salt Lake Magazine, Zingas and Kolesnik are among the national team ice dancers expected to be part of that event's championship-level field.
