At Milan Cortina 2026, the ice, snow, and sliding tracks are packed with athletes who did not just qualify for the Games, they also brought their partners along for the ride. From figure skating duos who share both a training rink and a home, to mixed doubles curlers juggling marriage and medal hopes, romance is baked into the competition schedule. The result is a Winter Olympics where love stories unfold in real time, right alongside the medal races.
Some couples are competing side by side in the same event, others are chasing hardware in completely different sports, and a few are even lining up on opposite sides of the rivalry line. Together, they give the 2026 Winter Olympics a distinctly personal edge, turning box scores and standings into something a lot more human.
Why couples at Milan Cortina are impossible to ignore
The idea of partners sharing an Olympic stage is not new, but the concentration of couples at the 2026 Winter Olympics makes it feel like a theme of these Games rather than a quirky subplot. Across figure skating, curling, skeleton, speedskating, and hockey, there are pairs whose relationships are as much a talking point as their medal chances. Coverage of All the Couples at these Games highlights how relationship dynamics are now part of the broader Olympic storyline, not just a feel good aside.
That spotlight is not just about romance, it is about how these athletes manage pressure, logistics, and expectations together. Some, like Madison Chock and Evan Bates, are literal teammates on the ice, while others, such as Hunter Powell and Kaysha Love or Brittany Bowe and her partner, are navigating separate events and training plans while still syncing their lives. The fact that so many of these names appear in roundups of athletes in love underlines how central they have become to the narrative of Milan Cortina.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the ice dance headliners
In figure skating, Madison Chock and Evan Bates are the obvious starting point for any conversation about couples at these Games. They are not just partners on the ice, they are a long standing couple off it, and their rhythm dance and free dance programs are built on that chemistry. Coverage of ice dancers Madison frames them as one of the defining love stories of the Winter Olympics, with their partnership stretching across multiple Olympic cycles.
Photographers have zeroed in on the way they interact in the kiss and cry, and images by Pablo Morano of Madison Chock and capture the mix of relief and affection that follows a clean skate. Their presence also matters in the team event, where the rhythm dance segment is a key scoring opportunity. U.S. Figure Skating’s announcement of Story Links for the Olympic Winter Games Competition Central underscores how central the rhythm dance is to the United States’ strategy, and a couple like Chock and Bates gives that segment a built in emotional hook.
Other figure skating duos and the team event web
Beyond ice dance, couples are woven through the wider figure skating roster. Team USA’s lineup includes pairs and singles skaters whose personal lives intersect with the rink, and fans are encouraged to Scroll through profiles of athletes like Amber Glenn, the 26 year old from Plano, Texas, whose personal story and artistry have made her a fan favorite. While Glenn is not paired romantically with a teammate in the way Chock and Bates are, she is part of a broader culture where skaters’ off ice relationships are part of how audiences connect with them.
The team event has already delivered some early drama. Before Opening Ceremony even got underway on Friday, the figure skating team competition kicked off, with the rhythm dance and pairs short program setting the tone. In the pairs short program segment, the pairs short program results fed directly into national standings, adding another layer of pressure for couples who skate together. Those scores also intersect with the separate pairs event, where the Team Pairs Short Standings list Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara JPN with 82.84 points, broken down as 45.60 and 37.24, and Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava GEO with 77.54, figures that appear in the detailed Team Pairs Short.
Mixed doubles curling, where marriage meets the house
If figure skating is the most obvious place to look for couples, mixed doubles curling is where relationship status is practically part of the event description. The discipline is built for two person teams, and several of those duos are married. Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten are singled out as one of three married couples in this year’s mixed doubles field, with the Norway pair described as a Norwegian duo whose on ice communication reflects years of shared experience.
The mixed doubles tournament itself has already produced some headline results. Great Britain topped Canada in one of the early round robin games, a result highlighted in coverage of how Great Britain tops in mixed doubles. That same schedule and standings breakdown is being shared widely, with prompts to Share on Facebook Share, Twitter Share, and Copy Link, which only amplifies the visibility of the couples at the heart of the event.
“Love is in the air” on the curling ice
The romantic angle in curling is not just a side note, it is part of how the event is being marketed. One feature flatly states that Love is in the air on mixed doubles curling ice as numerous couples compete, tying the format of the discipline to the personal lives of the athletes. That piece, which also points readers to Who is competing in mixed doubles curling at the 2026 Olympics, underscores how the sport has become a showcase for real life partnerships, with the phrase Love used as a framing device as much as a description.
That framing dovetails with more straightforward roster rundowns that list who is actually throwing stones. The detailed breakdown of Who is competing in mixed doubles curling at the 2026 Olympics spells out which teams are romantic couples, which are long time friends, and which are new partnerships built specifically for Milan Cortina. Together, those pieces of coverage turn the mixed doubles sheet into a kind of relationship map, where every draw has a backstory that extends beyond the scoreboard.
Queer couples rewriting the Winter Games playbook
One of the most striking shifts at Milan Cortina is how visible queer couples are across the program. A feature on LGBTQ+ athletes notes that these happy couples are ready to take home the gold, highlighting Marie Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey as one of the headline duos. The same piece spotlights Kim Meylemans and Nicole, underscoring how women’s hockey and sliding sports are now home to openly queer relationships that are treated as a normal part of the Olympic landscape, a point driven home by the gallery of Marie Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey alongside Kim Meylemans and Nicole.
These stories are not just about representation, they are about competitive stakes. Marie Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey are central figures for Canada’s women’s hockey team, while Kim Meylemans and Nicole are chasing results in skeleton. Another roundup of queer couples at the Games reiterates that Philip Poulin and and Kim Meylemans and Nicole are among the athletes whose relationships are being celebrated alongside their medal pushes, signaling a cultural shift where queer love stories are part of the mainstream Olympic conversation rather than tucked away.
Nicole Silveira and Kim Meylemans, married rivals on the track
Few stories capture the tension between love and rivalry quite like Nicole Silveira and Kim Meylemans. The two skeleton athletes are married, but they are also direct competitors in one of the most unforgiving sports on the program. A feature that invites readers to get to know all the couples competing together or against each other singles out Nicole Silveira and Kim as a prime example, with the line Ahead, all the elite athletes who are not only going for gold but taking home the win in romance setting the tone for how their story is told, and explicitly naming Nicole Silveira and.
Another piece drills down even further, noting that 2026 Winter Olympians Nicole Silveira (left) and Kim Meylemans are married but also rivals in skeleton, with the caption emphasizing that they are both going for gold. The article, which includes an Winter Olympians Nicole image, captures the surreal reality of sharing a life and a start list. It is a dynamic that turns every training run and race into a shared experience, even when the clock is the only official opponent.
Hockey’s heated rivalry couple and other cross sport pairs
Not every couple at Milan Cortina is competing in the same discipline. One widely shared story describes a “heated rivalry couple” whose situation feels like it could have been scripted for television, only to note that fans of the series may be delighted to learn that the plot is playing out in real life. The piece explains that the couple are on opposing hockey teams in Italy this month, turning every shift into a small chapter in a much bigger narrative, as detailed in the account of the heated rivalry couple on opposing hockey teams.
Other cross sport couples are juggling very different competitive calendars. A feature on multi sport American athletes notes that from the oval to the Cortina Sliding Centre, seven former track and field athletes are now competing in different sports at the Milan Cortina Olympics, highlighting how some relationships span not just teams but entire disciplines. That same piece, which describes the journey From the oval to the Cortina Sliding Centre at the Milan Cortina Olympics, underscores how couples can be navigating entirely different competitive worlds while still sharing the same Olympic village.
How the schedule keeps these love stories in motion
All of these relationships are playing out against a packed competition schedule that leaves very little downtime. Round robin curling matches continue alongside luge and ice hockey, while figure skating fans are tracking the team competition in pair skating, women’s single, and men’s single. A detailed schedule rundown notes that Round robin curling, sliding events, and hockey are all unfolding in parallel, which means couples often have to support each other from afar, catching highlights between their own training sessions.
That time crunch is part of why curated lists of couples have become so popular. One widely shared feature invites readers to meet all the couples competing together or against each other, promising that Ahead, all the elite athletes who are not only going for gold but taking home the win in romance will be introduced. The piece, which again highlights Ahead as a way into these stories, sits alongside more sport specific roundups like All the Couples Competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics, which name check Madison Chock and Evan Bates, Hunter Powell and Kaysha Love, and Brittany Bowe as part of a broader tapestry of relationships, as seen in the list of All the Couples at the Winter Olympics.
Why these couples resonate far beyond Milan Cortina
What ties all of these stories together is the sense that fans are not just watching athletes, they are watching relationships navigate extreme pressure in real time. Whether it is Madison Chock and Evan Bates turning their partnership into medal contending ice dance programs, Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten sweeping together for Norway, or Marie Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey anchoring Canada’s hockey hopes, the emotional stakes feel higher when viewers know the people on screen share a life off camera. That is why galleries of athletes in love are being shared as eagerly as medal tables.
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