Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik went into the Olympics with no expectations.
Barely a month later, as Zingas and Kolesnik ready to compete in their first World Championships together this week in Prague, they have become the standard bearer for U.S. ice dancing, which over the past 22 seasons has flown its flag in awards ceremonies at six straight Olympics and 19 of the last 21 worlds.
This has happened so fast for Zingas and Kolesnik.
The 2026 Winter Games in Milan were the first global championship appearance for them as a couple (Zingas also finished 36th in singles at 2021 Worlds for Cyprus).
She had taken up ice dance only four years ago after having spent more than a decade in singles. All the Olympic attention and pressure was on their U.S. teammates, three-time reigning world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
Zingas and Kolesnik’s coach, Igor Shpilband, still heard a buzz about his team at the rink where they train in suburban Detroit. People told the couple they had a shot at a medal in Italy. Even though the optimistic if uninformed chatter was well intentioned, Shpilband knew he had to tone it down before they left for Italy.
“Igor told me, ‘This is a learning experience for you,’’’ Kolesnik recalled. ‘You have almost zero chances of medaling. There are couples that are much more mature, older, more experienced.
“‘This is just a test run before our next two big Olympics. So have the best experience you can and have fun.’’’
And why not? After all, they had already overcome self-imposed pressure to make the Olympic team, doing it by finishing second to Chock and Bates at the Prevagen U.S. Championships after having built the foundation of their selection case by qualifying for the Grand Prix Final.
“Thinking back to (last) summertime, we had a chance of making the Olympic team, but it was super slim,” Kolesnik said. “We needed to skate our absolute best pretty much every single competition. And that’s what we did. When we got to the Olympics, we wanted to enjoy time there and just get the best (placement) we can.”
That turned out to be an unexpectedly high fifth place with personal best scores in both the rhythm and free dances. Although they were well off the podium, 11 points behind bronze medalists Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier of Canada, it was quite the test run for Zingas, 23, and Kolesnik, 24.
“I think finishing fifth is a remarkable result (given) the trajectory of our career, rising through the ranks so quickly,” Zingas said during a Zoom interview last week.
“I (was) shocked by it. It feels so cool, but it also feels a little bit unreal, like it’s not me. It’s quite hard to wrap my head around.”
The reality now is that Zingas and Kolesnik are the top U.S. ice dance team headed into the World Championships, which begin Wednesday with the women’s short program and end Saturday with the free dance.
Chock, 33, and Bates, 37, who finished second at the Olympics to French team Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, decided not to defend their title, ending their streak of 12 straight appearances at worlds (with six medals). Their absence also makes it likely a 10-year worlds medal streak by U.S. ice dancers will end.
While it seems likely Chock and Bates will retire from competition, they have yet to announce that.
“They were kind of the mom and dad of our Olympic team,” Zingas said of Chock and Bates, husband and wife and four-time Olympians together. “Evan has done this five times (the first with a different partner), and he was telling everyone what they needed to do, where they needed to be, what they needed to wear.
“It’s going to be a little strange not to have them at our first World Championship.”
Without Chock and Bates, a reasonable goal for Team USA dancers at these worlds will be securing the maximum three spots at the event for the 21st straight time. To do that, the placements of the top two U.S. couples must add up to 13 or fewer.
That means Zingas and Kolesnik probably must at least match their Olympic finish while Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko must improve on theirs (11th). Carreira and Ponomarenko were fifth and seventh at the last two worlds.
With the Olympic fourth-place finishers, Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri, also skipping worlds, Zingas and Kolesnik do have an outside medal chance in Prague.
That’s why they took only one day off before returning to training following the Olympics.
“We’ve always wanted to be the top team,” Zingas said. “Now that we have kind of earned it, I’m excited about it, because it’s just another step on the ladder of proving ourselves.
“Each competition this season, there have maybe been people who doubted our ability to achieve the results we have. Each time, we have risen to the occasion.
“Coming back from the Olympics and getting back into training was a little difficult. The only thing that kept us going was the thought we have this amazing opportunity at the World Championships to have a good result, help earn three spots for next season and maybe also continue the medal streak.”
They cut themselves a little slack by eschewing the “quad” program run throughs (back-to-back-to-back-to-back) they trained earlier in this season, settling for “triples” before tapering to singles last week.
“Our coach was telling us we should probably chill down and do only doubles, but we tried to push ourselves again,” Kolesnik said. “It’s not just for physical condition. It’s also helping me mentally, knowing that I’ve done all this work.
“Doing a single run through after how much we were doing in previous weeks feels too easy. It’s like, ‘God, we’re lazy.’’’
They are already thinking of programs for next season and have settled on free dance music, which they did not want to reveal but said Benoit Richaud will choreograph it.
The rhythm dance in 2026-27 must be a waltz, but the music need not be traditional as long as it has the 3/4 time signature that defines a waltz.
Zingas and Kolesnik plan to chill out at a Florida beach vacation with some skating friends in May. They expect to make some appearances with the Stars on Ice tour and do some smaller shows this spring and summer.
Zingas grew up in suburban Detroit. Kolesnik came to the United States in 2016 from Kharkiv, Ukraine, a city now ravaged by four years of bombing after Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022.
A month later, he teamed up with Zingas, who left singles after representing Cyprus, her father’s native land, for a few seasons, ending when she failed to qualify for the 2022 Olympics.
They are now a couple on and off the ice. She wears the promise ring he bought her for the second anniversary of their first date. (“She wanted a ring, and Costco had a sale on diamonds,” he said, with an impish smile.) He gave her 100 red roses for her first birthday after they began dating three years ago.
“From there, he just had to step it up and step it up,” she said, laughing.
That also applies to where they stand on the ice. Their relative anonymity prior to the Olympics allowed for skating with no expectations.
“I don’t think a lot of people knew about our existence, but now they do,” Kolesnik said.
They turned enough heads this season, especially at the Olympics, to have been selected as candidates for both of the International Skating Awards open to skaters: best costume (for their free dance) and most entertaining program (their rhythm dance).
They made the podium at both of their Grand Prix regular season events and took gold at the Four Continents Championships.
“I still feel, even at this point, that we have nothing to lose, only things to gain,” Kolesnik said.
Up and up. Step by step.
Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at the last 13 Winter Olympics, is a special contributor to NBCSports.com.
