Figure Skating at the 2006 Winter Olympics

Dates 11 – 23 February 2006
Medal Events 4

The 2006 figure skating events were held at the Palevela Skating Palace, but it was the scoring, not the location, that was the story in 2006. Because of the controversy that had occurred at the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics in the pairs event, the International Skating Union had been forced to make major changes to the system of judging and scoring figure skating. No longer were skaters or couples scored based on a perfect score of 6.0, with deductions given for errors or omissions. Other changes were that there were now 12 judges instead of nine, with 9 of the 12 scores chosen at random, and the judges’ identities for each chosen score were not revealed.

Also gone was the majority placement system that had ruled for over a century. Skaters were now judged by a positive scoring system, with points given for each maneuver, with degree of difficulty, similar to diving, now taken into account. There was no theoretic maximum, and critics said that the new scoring system encouraged and rewarded jumping more than artistic skating. Other criticism noted that because the judges’ scores were not released, the new system had less transparency, rather than more. But no matter how it affected the scoring, the skaters had to adapt because this was the system that was in effect from 2004 on.

Events

Event Status Date Participants NOCs
Singles, Men Olympic 14 – 16 February 2006 30 22
Singles, Women Olympic 21 – 23 February 2006 29 19
Pairs, Mixed Olympic 11 – 13 February 2006 40 12
Ice Dancing, Mixed Olympic 17 – 20 February 2006 48 15
147 (74/73) 35 (30/28)

Medals

Event Gold Silver Bronze
Singles, Men Yevgeny PlyushchenkoRUS Stéphane LambielSUI Jeff ButtleCAN
Singles, Women Shizuka ArakawaJPN Sasha CohenUSA Irina SlutskayaRUS
Pairs, Mixed Russian Federation 1RUS People's Republic of China 1CHN People's Republic of China 3CHN
Ice Dancing, Mixed Russian Federation 1RUS United States 1USA Ukraine 1UKR

Medal table

NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total
Russian Federation RUS 3 0 1 4
Japan JPN 1 0 0 1
United States USA 0 2 0 2
People's Republic of China CHN 0 1 1 2
Switzerland SUI 0 1 0 1
Canada CAN 0 0 1 1
Ukraine UKR 0 0 1 1