Milan — After years of practice and competition, American pair Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea finally skated on Olympic ice Friday, moving in near-perfect harmony in the team pairs short program — until Kam slipped and fell. The stumble was sudden and unmistakable. “We wish we were perfect every single time we step out on the ice,” the 21‑year‑old Kam said afterward with a rueful smile. “But you know, ice is slippery.”
What made their skate notable wasn’t the fall itself — no training regime can eliminate every unpredictable variable — but how quickly they recovered. With k.d. lang’s “Hallelujah” playing, Kam pushed off, rose, and rejoined O’Shea, spinning back into rhythm as if nothing more than a brief interruption had occurred. “She didn’t need me to pick her up. She got up and went after the next thing,” said O’Shea, 34. “We put the past in the past, and stepped right into the next element.”
The ability to reset after a mistake comes from repetition, communication and composure under pressure. “I mean it’s a lot of practice, for sure,” Kam said. “We focus [in training], so that if something does go wrong in competition, we don’t have to question anything. I’m going to be where he is.” O’Shea added that during programs he talks to her and that, in the moment after a fall, the strategy is a deep breath and focus: “All right, calm, one more thing, spin.”
They were not alone on the ice that day. China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong — Olympic champions in 2022 — also hit the ice hard during their team pairs skate. “We fell down this time,” Han said after the program. “We’ve skated well recently, but we just fell down, it’s very strange.” Sui noted they would use the time before the next event to practice and recover.
History offers dramatic examples of turning a crash into triumph. At the 2006 Turin Games, China’s Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao attempted a risky throw never before landed in major competition; it failed and Zhang Dan fell into a painful split, leaving the ice injured. The pair returned shortly after and, despite the shock and confusion about where to resume the choreography, completed their program and won the silver medal. “Gradually, after we restarted we became more and more clear in our minds how to do these elements,” Zhang Dan later recalled. “We wanted to go on.”
In 2018, U.S. skater Nathan Chen fell multiple times in PyeongChang but then adopted a fearless approach: “I already fell so many times, I might as well go out and throw everything down and see what happens,” he told NPR then. He went on to land six quadruple jumps in a single free skate, making Olympic history.
Smaller errors, handled calmly, can also have little consequence. During Friday’s team women’s competition in Milan, American Alysa Liu landed awkwardly off a double axel and grimaced — then laughed it off. “I was like, whoopsies!” the 20‑year‑old said. She recovered, stuck subsequent landings, finished strong and helped the U.S. lead the overall team standings.
Falls are part of figure skating’s narrative, woven into its greatest dramas as much as its finest moments. The difference between a misstep and a disaster often comes down to preparation, immediate communication between partners or coaches, and the skater’s ability to breathe, refocus and skate the next element with conviction. When that click happens, a stumble can be only a brief punctuation in a performance that goes on to soar.