Maia Shibutani, Alex Shibutani announce ice dance comeback after 7 years away
Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani, the 2018 Olympic bronze medalists in ice dance and figure skating's team event, plan to return to competition for the first time in seven years for the 2025-26 Olympic season.
They made the announcement in a social media post and video.
'Our experiences and the new skills we've developed during our time away from competition have brought us different perspectives and created some exciting new possibilities,' Alex said in a press release. 'We don't take any of this for granted. We're really enjoying the process and look forward to performing and competing together again.'
Siblings Maia, 30, and Alex, 34, last competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.
The Shibutanis won their first world medal (bronze) in their senior debut season in 2010-11 as the youngest medalists in the event in nearly 50 years. They later won both national titles and world championships medals in 2016 (silver) and 2017 (bronze).
In 2018, they became the second set of siblings to earn Olympic ice dance medals after France's Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay in 1992. They were also the first ice dancers of Asian descent to earn Olympic ice dance medals.
In December 2019, Maia announced that she had a cancerous kidney tumor removed and that she had SDH-deficient renal cell carcinoma. It was detected early, and no further treatment was required at the time.
'These past seven years have challenged and inspired us in ways we never expected,' Maia said in Thursday's release. 'I'm so happy and grateful to be healthy and in a position to make the decision to return to the sport I love in this way.'
In their time away from competition, the Shibutanis wrote four children's books.
In their return, they will be coached by Marina Zoueva and Massimo Scali. Zoueva coached them from 2007 through the 2018 Olympics. They worked with Scali as a choreographer in the 2018 Olympic cycle.
For the 2026 Olympics, a U.S. Figure Skating committee will select the three ice dance couples after next January's U.S. Championships, taking into account results over the previous year.
At this past March's World Championships, Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates won their third consecutive world ice dance title.
Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, the 2024 and 2025 U.S. silver medalists, were a career-best fifth at worlds, plus made the podium in both of their fall Grand Prix starts for the first time. Carreira, who was born in Canada, is pursuing citizenship to become eligible to represent the U.S. at the Olympics.
U.S. bronze medalists Caroline Green and Michael Parsons placed ninth at worlds.
The 2025-26 figure skating season begins in earnest in September. The top-level Grand Prix Series starts in October.
Nick Zaccardi,
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