Gender, Power, and the Culture of Pairs
The Future of Pairs series has examined potential pathways to building the pairs discipline, including rule changes (see part I) and the development of coaching expertise (see part II). For pairs to grow, the sport must also tackle the prevalence of abuse and the physical and mental toll on its athletes.
Addressing the dark side of the sport requires confronting the gendered power imbalances within pairs partnerships. Reexamining assumptions around gender in the sport, including allowing teams of any gender, would contribute to a healthier environment for all skaters.
The culture of figure skating, and pairs and dance in particular, has been shaped by the relative lack of male athletes. “It kind of goes back to supply and demand,” said 2016 US Champion Tarah Kayne. “Demand is high for boys in skating, especially boys who are tall and strong and can fulfill the role of the partner. And demand is high. Supply is low. So it creates a very tricky dynamic between the men and women in the sport.”
This scarcity leads to male skaters being treated as a valuable resource, and female partners being treated as disposable. Olympic Champion ice dancer Gabriella Papadakis recently wrote: “Boys are the eligible bachelors that coaches and parents of little girls are chasing. They have all the choice in the world, while the girls are often treated as replaceable… This imbalance leaves a lasting impact on women’s psyches throughout our careers. We know our partners have an easier path for finding another partner. We know that our physical appearance matters just as much, if not more, than our skating and athletic abilities. It’s no surprise that many of these on-ice relationships can become psychologically or even physically abusive.”
Making skating safe and healthy therefore requires tackling the misogyny and homophobia that lies at the root of the gender imbalance in the sport. Figure skating needs to prioritize education and open discussion about healthy partnerships and the inherent value of all athletes as human beings. The discipline should also question the assumed link between the ideal height and body shape for a pair skater and the skater’s gender. Opening the discipline to teams of any gender would increase opportunities for new partnerships and contribute to a healthier experience for all skaters, including those in traditional female/male partnerships.
Men, a Scarce Resource
The shortage of pair men is, of course, related to the shortage of men in figure skating overall – a phenomenon that is deeply rooted in misogyny and homophobia.
Mary Louise Adams examines the issue in her book Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity, and the Limits of Sport.
“Why do so few men and boys figure skate? Any boy raised in North America could give quick answers to such questions: figure skating is not like other sports. Its costumes and music make it arty and dance-like and therefore more appropriate for girls than boys, just like dance. By virtue of choosing a so-called feminine sport, male figure skaters are often assumed to be effeminate themselves. In a culture in which effeminacy is the primary and most stereotypical signifier of male homosexuality, this means they are also assumed to be gay.”
Adams continues:
“Figure skating is a highly – perhaps the most highly – gendered sport. It is one of only a few competitive athletic activities that do little to validate the masculinities of their male competitors. Indeed, skating so contravenes the gendered identities produced in more stereotypically masculine sports that male skaters routinely face harassment and ridicule for pursuing it. For this reason, skating officials and coaches struggle to attract young boys to the sport and to keep them involved. Since at least 1940, concerned members of the skating community have put considerable effort into reframing popular images of men’s skating in order to make the sport more attractive to boys and men, a project with which they have had little success.”
Adams’ book is primarily concerned with singles skating. Pairs, while not immune to the broader context of the sport, does validate the masculinity of male skaters in several important ways. Pairs skating allows for the expression of strength through lifting and throwing, in a way that conforms to masculine ideas of athleticism that are prioritized in mainstream culture. It also lends itself to the telling of mainstream romantic and heroic narratives (although one of the ideals of pairs is unity and synchronicity between partners, a goal which is in tension with the gendered difference in bodies that is otherwise praised).
During the press conference at Europeans in 2023, several Italian pair skaters commented on the shortage of men. “Talking for our country,” said Niccolo Macii, “People are always thinking that figure skating is for women. So I would like to tell the guys that would like to start skating that it’s not a women’s sport. You can find your way to be a man, to carry a lady, to do lifts, and feel like a man, more than some other sports.”
“I totally agree with Nico,” said Rebecca Ghilardi. “Sometimes a man [thinks] I can not do it because it’s a women’s sport, and it’s not true – because you can see beautiful men here!”
Men who fit masculine and heterosexual stereotypes are particularly valuable to the image of the sport. Pair men are supposed to represent strength and stability; the branch that displays the flower, in a frequently-used phrase. The physical requirements, which include height and upper body strength, play into Western stereotypes of masculinity. This makes pair men an example of the kinds of masculinity that many would like to see more of in the sport, and pairs is invested in these gender dynamics beyond the actual physical requirements of the elements.
A promising male pair skater may have his choice of partners.
World Champion pair skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek said, “To me, it’s all about: if there’s a kid in juniors who got last, but he’s got the body for pairs, why aren’t we telling that kid, ‘Hey, we think you got a lot of talent. We just think you’re doing the wrong discipline. Why don’t you try this? Listen, there are five girls that are interested. Here you go.’”
While that kind of encouragement is well-meant, it reinforces the idea that pair boys are a rare commodity – one for every five women – and therefore more valuable relative to their partners.
Tarah Kayne explains: “The guys are always being told that they could do better…the girls read it a lot of the time, and it’ll be something simple, like ‘she has fallen however many times this season, he would be so good if he had a better partner,’ or like, ‘he would be Olympic champion if he had a more consistent partner, he should look for someone else.”
In addition, the man is valued for the investment of time that goes into building the pair skills, part of the reason that men tend to have longer careers and more partners than women (see the section on age differences below).
“I think there often is just this crazy pressure for the pair girl specifically to be perfect and if she’s not she gets thrown away for somebody new,” said Canadian pairs champion Kirsten Moore-Towers. “We’ve seen that quite a few times in the last couple of years, unfortunately, and we’ve read stories of abuse, mental abuse in pair girls quite a few times in the past couple of years. Why would you start getting into pairs when this is what you see? Why would your parents put you in pair skating?”
The Toll It Takes
Within the context of these partnerships, women experience even more pressure to do the things many athletes feel pressured to do already: restrict their eating, skate through injury, and perform the expected feminine role, including remaining closeted.
Canadian Olympian Julianne Séguin wrote in her memoir A Medal at Any Cost that her coach Josée Picard was obsessed with her weight, and encouraged her to return to training despite ongoing symptoms from a concussion. ‘She was always saying I was not caring about [partner Charlie Bilodeau]’s back, that maybe I would hurt Charlie’s back or he would get injured because I was putting on weight.” Moore-Towers also has spoken openly about how the pressure she felt to be an ideal partner contributed to the development of an eating disorder.
Ice dancer Karina Manta said, “With injuries, a lot of it came back to the fact that I did feel like I needed to prove my worth. And I did feel really precarious in terms of being seen as equally valuable in my partnership – to no fault of Joe’s, it is an institutional thing.”
While several male pair skaters have come out as LGBTQ+ while competing, no female pair skater has. Russian-Estonian pair skater Natalia Zabiiako came out well after retiring from competition.
Manta was the first female Team USA skater to come out while still an active competitor. She believes the pressure towards conformity has kept queer women closeted, or pushed them out of the sport entirely. “If you want to be a woman in the sport and have a partner who’s a man you need to constantly be proving your worth…So it does make sense that you haven’t had women come out, because you don’t want to create any sort of situation where you are to blame, or you could be the reason to be losing points, or you can be the reason a team’s looked down on.”
These pressures create an environment ripe for physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse that the ISU and other governing bodies are only starting to deal with. Abusive training environments extend beyond the skaters themselves; coaches also have enormous power over their (often young and isolated) skaters and can make or break careers. The recent cases of Morgan Ciprés and John Coughlin consisted of sexual assaults by male pair skaters that were allegedly covered up by coaches. These men were too valuable to be held accountable for their actions, whereas the women believed they would be punished for rocking the boat.
There have also been similar cases in ice dance. Nikolaj Sørensen was supported by his coaches at the Ice Academy off Montreal after he was accused of rape; IAM and Skate Canada have still not commented on his 6-year suspension. In contrast, female IAM dancer Soléne Mazingue shared that she did not receive support from IAM coaches after she shared her alleged assault by another (not IAM) ice dancer.
In March 2019, SafeSport said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports that it had discovered “a culture in figure skating that allowed grooming and abuse to go unchecked for too long.”
The careers of alleged abusers are protected, at the expense of alleged victims. This mirrors a broader issue in sports and society as a whole – but the sheer prevalence of these cases in ice dance and pairs points to the underlying issues of gender imbalance in these sports. How many other cases of abuse have not been reported because victims know their future in the sport will not survive speaking up?
Examining Our Assumptions
To build a healthier pairs discipline, we need to tease apart the linked assumptions about age, size, and gender, and their relationship to athletic performance.
Does the lifting partner need to be taller than the lifted partner? Could pair elements be taught to partners of a similar size if there was more incentive to take the time? Does the lifting partner need to be male and the lifted partner need to be female?
We also should recognize that the rules of the sport have shifted over time, and could shift again. Rather than choosing or shaping bodies to fit the demands of the elements, we could choose which elements are prioritized by the scoring system.
In part II of the Future of Pairs series, I discussed how a combination of push and pull factors bring skaters into pairs. In addition to making pairs a more attractive and accessible option (the pull factors), coaches and federations can actively recruit athletes, pushing them into the discipline.
The push can be a healthy thing since many pair skaters are hesitant to start the discipline but come to love it. However, the characteristics that coaches and federation officials look for in potential pair skaters can reinforce a very narrow definition of who has a place in the sport.
The recruitment process is highly gendered in both the personality and physical traits that are seen as ideal.
US High Performance Director Kyoko Ina said fearlessness is the most important characteristic for girls. “They need to have that adrenaline rush of being able to go and try new things and not have fear…I think they’re the toughest athletes out there.”
For boys, she looks for height. “That’s the number one factor for the boys. It’s tougher for them to find a smaller girl to skate with if they don’t have height, because lifting a girl the same size as him is not going to be the easiest.”
Tall boys and short girls are much more likely to be scouted for pairs. Deanna Stellato-Dudek noted, “I was asked to do pairs a lot when I was younger because I was the same size I am now…There are also some male skaters who, you look at them when they’re 15, and you think, ‘you’re going be a pair boy. You don’t know it yet. But you’re muscular, you’ve got broad shoulders, you’re not going to be doing a quad Axel.’ You know what I mean? It’s physics. ‘You’re going to be lifting a girl over your head.’ That person should already be doing pairs.”
The physical characteristics that can hinder a skater in singles, such as height and broad shoulders that make fast rotation in jumps more difficult, can be an asset to the lifting partner in a pair. Yet, with side-by-side jumps a requirement, a skater usually needs at least some triple jumps to do well in elite competition. This means that a tall skater may be discouraged from pursuing figure skating early in a singles career, further diminishing the number of recruits for later pairs teams.
The data from international competitors suggests the height difference in a team does matter, or at least is consistently selected for when pairing athletes.
Among teams at Senior Worlds in 2024, the average woman was 1.57m (5’2”) and the average man was 1.82m (6’0”). The average height gap is 22cm (10 inches) and ranges from 33cm to 16cm. The teams with the smallest height difference (Lia Pereira/Trennt Michaud and Milania Väänänen/Filippo Clerici) also had men who were among the shortest in the field, at 1.75m. The tallest women were Minerva Fabienne Hase (1.65m) and Sara Conti (1.64m). However, their partners were also taller than average, and the height differences in both partnerships are close to the average of 22cm.
At the short program press conference at the 2025 Europeans, I asked Hase and Conti about their experiences as successful and tall pair skaters. “It was just hard in terms of finding a partner who is tall enough, which I found with Nikita,” Hase said. “I am just trying to use it as an advantage to be taller, because our lines and everything are bigger…I think a lot of people like that in us, that we look taller on the ice and we have a bigger presence. So maybe it’s time for more tall girls to go to pair skating – and maybe more taller boys to also go to pairs!”
Conti’s height impacted her a lot at the start of her pair career. “Everybody said to me, you can’t skate with Nicolò because the proportions are not the best. It’s true, but I just wanted to skate with Nic… I remember that I cried so much because I just want to skate with Nic. In the beginning, it was a little bit hard because I’m new, but we worked a lot on the technique, we have to do [elements with] super precision. But I like to watch our physique, because, like Minerva said, it’s different.”
With the right partner, a short man or a tall woman is not necessarily at a disadvantage. For example, the 2022 Olympic Champion Cong Han is only 1.70m, but still 20 cm taller than his partner Wenjing Sui. Former US Champion Ashley Cain is notably tall for a pair skater at 1.67m, and had the same 20 cm height gap with her partner Timothy LeDuc.
It’s notable, however, that Cain received criticism for her height, while Han did not. “There were so many negative comments that would then affect the way that I was thinking about myself,” shared Cain. “This is the body that I was born with. I couldn’t change it, I couldn’t get myself shorter…and it’s something that could have fully pushed me out of the sport if like I had listened to what people were saying about me or the way that we looked.”
Cain argues that we should do more to encourage athletes who don’t fit the mold of a typical pair skater. “Because of the team that we cultivated around us, I felt fully comfortable in the body that I had. And then it gave me the strength to look at myself and be like, no, my legs are strong enough to hold me up on throws. My height gives me the length to have these full extensions. I started looking at all of those things as our strengths instead of what people were saying our weaknesses were. And then it was interesting when we started to do that, then the negative comments got less and less. When we started fully embodying ourselves and bringing that out, then nobody had anything to say.”
Moore-Towers agrees that we need to look at more than size when assessing skaters’ potential.
“First and foremost, it’s our language. The way we talk about who would be a good pair girl used to drive me nuts and as a kid I didn’t want to skate pairs at all…I was very, very short and so many people were telling my coach and telling my mom ‘She would be a great pair skater’ but I never wanted to do it. It wasn’t until I was a teen that I decided to give it a try and I loved it. But I didn’t love it, I didn’t do it because I was tiny. I did it because I liked flying and all of these amazing things that pair skating gives you… I wanted to skate pairs, not because I was small, [but] because I was strong and capable. And because I could connect with a partner more than I could connect to an audience by myself. All of these things that make me a good pair skater are things that I developed myself, not something that I was born with.”
Even if we accept that a minimum height difference of 16cm is necessary to safely complete advanced pair elements, it doesn’t necessarily follow that teams must consist of a man lifting a woman. If being the lifting partner were open to skaters of any gender, it could open up pathways for female skaters who may currently be discouraged from competing in singles because their height or broad shoulders make high-revolution jumps challenging, the same way it currently provides that pathway for male skaters.
Age and Experience Gaps
It is common in pairs to have an older male partner, often with several previous partnerships, team up with a younger woman, often fresh from singles. This age and experience gap, if not addressed, can exacerbate the power imbalance within a team.
There is some disagreement about the ideal time to start skating pairs. “There are two thoughts,” said US coach and former pair champion Jenni Meno. “You can start young and learn from the beginning. But a lot of times, especially with the boys, they’re not physically developed enough. So I think boys a little later, at 17, they’re starting to become stronger physically. I think that the better single skaters they are, and the longer they compete in singles, the better skaters they become. Several of the best pair skaters that the US has had, particularly girls, have skated singles for quite a while.”
US pair skater Valentina Plazas suggested that recruitment for boys should start earlier, simply because there are more boys skating at the lower levels. “U.S. Figure Skating should be telling the boys: “Hey, here’s your opportunity for pairs!” There are so many boys in juvenile, so get them started early. People think that pairs is for older people but the earlier they start, the easier it is.”
Cain noted that in the Russian system, skaters are often teamed up at a young age, giving them an advantage in partnering skills that develop over years of skating together. “In a lot of those teams, they’ve created longevity [by putting] them together at a young age so that they can build those foundations and then they see them through all of the levels. Whereas, a lot of times in the US, they start at a higher level with less pair experience, and the biggest thing I think we miss in US pairs is longevity. By our seventh year of competing together, Tim and I were able to have this communication without communicating at all and that just comes with time, and the elements are able to gel as well.”
Tarah Kayne also sees the relatively late start most pair skaters get in the US as a limitation on who can thrive. If you have a smaller height difference, for example, it can take time to develop techniques that work. “With the sort of pressures and funnelling, you’re going to choose the people who can do this more easily, instead of the people who maybe could do it, but it would take them twice as long to learn the element… In other cultures, you’re chosen as a younger kid. So like we saw with [Sui and Han], they had a very close height difference, but they had also been skating together since they were little kids, so maybe they built a timing and rapport with each other that they were able to work through that. And in North America, we don’t really get that option, because if you’re starting pairs when you’re 20, you can’t take that long.”
In North America, the advantages of an early start tend to be seen as less important than the size and strength requirements that boys may struggle with before puberty. The conventional wisdom is that puberty helps male skaters and, at least temporarily, hinders females. The difference in the timing of puberty also leads to a bias towards younger women and older men.
Kyoko Ina pointed to developmental differences and safety concerns while learning the discipline. “The best analogy I can give you, is if you were to go to the gym, having never lifted weights, would you start at 150 pounds? Or do you start at five pounds, the next week on to 10, and then so on and so on? A lot of these boys who are new to pairs, the age gap is so big because you want to lift the lightest girl possible to keep both parties safe. That’s a battle with SafeSport as well, because of the age gap – but also in SafeSport, you don’t want to abuse anybody either, and force them to do things that they’re not capable of doing yet.”
This logic is borne out by the age data at the junior level. Among the teams at Junior Worlds in 2023, the average age was 15.79 for a woman and 18.93 for a man. The average gap was 3.14 years between partners. For 13 of the 14 teams, the man was older (the exception being Chloe Panetta and Kieran Thrasher, where Chloe was less than a year older than Kieran). On average, the women started pairs at just over age 13, had 3 years of pairs experience, and 1.29 partners. The men started later, at just over 16, had more than 6 years of experience in pairs, and 1.85 partners on average.
Pairs with large age gaps in juniors have faced issues as the minimum age for seniors has increased, stranding several teams with large age gaps unable to compete in junior or senior. Meno has advocated for rule changes to allow boys to stay in juniors later. “I don’t think pairs’ ages should be the same as singles. The boys do need to be older than the girls. Because you can’t take a 13-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl and expect them to be able to compete at the junior pairs level. The boys need to be older, they need to be bigger, they need to be stronger. And once they get into their early 20s is when they really start to become stronger.”
The junior age limits were adjusted again before the 2024/2025 season, allowing men to skate at the junior level until age 23, and women until age 21, with a maximum age gap of seven years between partners.
While developmental differences may explain the age gap at the junior level, it is interesting to note that the age gap also persists into the senior ranks, where fewer skaters are new to the discipline. Even experienced men tend to have younger partners, even when forming those partnerships in the senior ranks. When new teams form at the senior level, the man still tends to be older, and also to have more experience and more previous partners. This “experience gap” indicates that more is going on than waiting for men to go through puberty.
At the 2024 Senior World Championships, pair men were on average 3.42 years older and had 2.58 more years of experience than their partners. The average woman was in her second partnership; the average man was in his third.
Danny O’Shea noted that the prevalence of older male partners in pairs is partly explained by the fact that certain elements, such as lifts, can take a long time to master. “There’s just a safety issue when the guys aren’t experienced. You’re capable of learning things quickly, either way. But if you try to push a male partner to get to the level too quickly, you run into some issues that we all want to avoid. A size difference helps, and as men go through life, they continue to mature and keep growing and gaining muscle through that process. So many of my elements are very dependent on very small stabilizer muscles that I would not be able to work on with most average gym movements, that have become finely developed over the course of lifting human beings every day for a decade.”
Italian pairs coach Ondrej Hotarek also reflected that “it needs a long time to get to the point where a pair skating guy can take a girl from single skating and in a year transform her and make it work as Trennt [Michaud] did with Lia [Pereira]. For that, you need first to be strong, and second, to be super sure of what you’re doing. To build a pair guy like that you need at least seven to eight years. Usually, we say to take a guy that’s new to pairs and make him good, you need four years.”
“I skated with three different partners, four partners,” Hotarek continued. “I always went and picked the single skaters, with Stefania [Berton], and then Valentina [Marchei]….You can always teach a girl who is a strong single skater. You need an experienced guy, but an experienced guy like Trennt can make it work. I’ve only seen a few [women] that were so afraid that they couldn’t do it. But mostly when they are strong in singles, they’ll find the drive to do it well.”
In summary, male pair skaters not only tend to be older than their partners but also tend to have more partners and longer careers. With the time involved in developing strength and skills, pair men are seen as an investment by their coaches and federations, at times more so than the women – because you can always grab another girl from singles if the guy is experienced.
We can speculate that the pressures on female skaters – to be thin, to not take time off to recover from injury – could build up over the length of a career, leading to more serious injuries, mental health challenges, and earlier retirement than their male counterparts.
Kayne noted, “As far as the idea of just like, trading in for a new, different model, I think you see that a lot with the older guys, where it’s like, ‘Well, I am, you know, however many years old, I’ve already done so much in the sport, but my partner is older, has been injured, maybe wants to move on’ – because as females, our time in the sport kind of cuts into your time out of the sport. If I want to maybe look into having children, I have to make this switch, and they don’t have to do that. So that’s all going on behind the scenes, and maybe [he thinks], ‘I’m just gonna, like, import a new one.’ Then you get a younger girl who has less baggage, in a way.”
The role of education and empowerment
We can start to address the dark side of pairs by educating all skaters and coaches about the risks of a power imbalance in partnerships. Large age and/or experience gaps are not inherently problematic, so long as the younger and less experienced partner receives the necessary support and respect from the older partner and coaches, and is empowered to demand fair treatment without the fear of retribution.
Ironically, teams with the largest age and experience gaps may be on a stronger footing in this regard, if they are motivated to have open discussions about their dynamics and pay extra attention to the wellbeing of the female partner. Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea emphasize that they are equals in their partnership, despite a 16-year-age gap. “[It’s] 100% that way,” said Danny. “I am not the coach and that is what we designed it as, from the very beginning.” Ellie confirmed, “I feel like, to get to a certain level, you have to have that balance so there is a voice from each side. Because you’re both out there. It’s not like one person is doing more than the other.”
Their coach Drew Meekins also emphasized the importance of equality. “I understand there are more women than men in pairs, and that reality can create a sense of inequality. But once a team is formed, it’s crucial that both partners feel they are equal contributors, both athletically and emotionally. I think perpetuating any sense of inequality can be toxic, so I try my best to foster a partnership dynamic where both skaters feel equally valuable and capable.”
Moore-Towers said that she’d like to see more education for skaters about how to have supportive partnerships. “When the boys feel like they are not replaceable, but there are so many girls…this power struggle is harmful and it’s not conducive to a good career. If your girl does not feel confident and safe in a partnership, she’s not going to compete or practice at her best. It’s common sense. And I think this is a lesson that a lot of people need.”
Part of a healthy dynamic is ensuring that a skater has options if they choose to speak up about problems or to leave a partnership that isn’t working. The financial precariousness of many skaters and the limited number of training centers for pairs also limit options to continue a high-level career after speaking up. The flawed SafeSport system in the US has not adequately supported skaters who report abuse, and most other nations have fewer resources available. Safeguarding reforms and increased athlete rights – such as those provided to professional athletes within unionized sports – could make a real difference to athlete well-being.
Open Gender Pairs as a Solution
Perhaps the most helpful reform is also one of the most straightforward. The scarcity of male partners could be addressed by allowing – and fully encouraging – teams of any gender. With more options of possible partners, skaters would be more likely to form strong, equal relationships that would allow them to thrive on and off the ice.
A pairs team is currently defined in the ISU rules as a man and a woman, who each have specific roles in the team. For example, the man must lift and throw the woman, and the reverse would not be allowed. These rules are followed in nearly all national federations, including in the US, where nonbinary pair skater Timothy LeDuc was grandfathered into the male role in their partnership.
In 2022, however, Skate Canada changed its rule to allow pair and dance teams of any gender composition, including in the competitive “podium pathway”, up to the national championships. The rule allows same-sex pairs and also opens the sport to nonbinary athletes and partnerships with atypical gender roles.
“By updating the definition of team, many individuals in the figure skating community in Canada will have new opportunities to embrace the sport. This change is about removing barriers to participation in skating, and we believe it will have a significant impact in ensuring all gender identities are recognised and accepted equally and without prejudice,” said Karen Butcher, President of Skate Canada.
Allowing teams of any gender has also been discussed at the ISU Ice Dance Technical Committee, with committee chair Shawn Rettstatt and athlete representative Kaitlyn Weaver expressing support. The change to open gender is also seen as beneficial because it could allow the many female skaters who lack male partners to experience competitive paired dance by teaming up with each other.
Since Skate Canada made its change, several female/female ice dance teams have formed in Canada, including Olivia Marr and Mia Sugino, who competed for two seasons at the Novice level. Outside of competition, Gabriella Papadakis and Madison Hubbell have teamed up for show performances, and have spoken about their goal of proving that female/female ice dance partnerships are possible.
Gabriella Papadakis also notes the potential for improving the public perception and popularity of the sport. “Although same-sex pairs are not inherently queer (two straight people can skate together in a very straight way, I assure you), they resonate strongly with younger audiences, nearly 30% of whom identify as queer. This inclusivity is a significant step forward for reaching this demographic. And even for the 70% of straight people, seeing mixed-gender couples that reflect more equal and modern partnerships offers a representation that feels authentic and relatable to how male-female relationships are evolving today.”
To date, there are no competitive pairs in Canada who are not in female/male partnerships, although in professional skating, we do see examples of partnerships with two men, including adagio pair Zabato Bebe and Alejandro Soler Castro.
Pairs is lagging behind dance partly because there are simply fewer pair skaters and pair coaches in Canada than there are ice dancers.
The size assumptions also play a role. Short women and tall men, who face fewer barriers to finding a partner of the opposite sex, may shy away from partnerships that would not currently be allowed to compete internationally. Short men (who might otherwise become the lifted partner in a team) face fewer barriers to success in singles; tall women are almost entirely absent from figure skating at the elite level, and face barriers to developing the required singles skating skills.
The cultural investment in pairs as a discipline that validates masculinity and traditional gender roles (in contrast to men’s single skating) may also be playing a part in discouraging innovation, as well as fear of a homophobic reaction from judges and the public.
Nonetheless, many coaches think that pairs will catch up eventually.
“I think it’s great that more people can be included, and I love it,” shared Canadian coach and former pairs champion Meagan Duhamel.
Bruno Marcotte (coach of 2023 World Champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan) suggests that people who aspire to compete internationally will likely wait for a change in the ISU rules. “It’s going to be a great opportunity for people to express themselves the way they want and I think, for this, it is amazing. But there’s going to be some young talents that are going to say, ‘I want to go to Worlds. I want to go to the Olympics.’”
Not only does the standard for international competition affect people with those aspirations but it also has effects down the line to people without a hope or plan to achieve that. The impact of the international rules is particularly notable in pairs, where there are fewer recreational and developmental skaters than in the other disciplines.
Italian pairs coach Franca Bianconi worries about the possible inherent unfairness of two men skating together. “So maybe it needs rules, but of course, it’s interesting. And they do it already, in diving, I think, and in so many sports, you have teams made of two men or two women or mixed.” She added that safety should be the guiding principle. “We know that pairs can be quite dangerous. So we don’t want to hurt people. We want to be very, very safe, but if it’s safe, anything is possible.”
Drew Meekins believes that the US will eventually move in the same direction as Canada.
“I think, frankly, anything that grows that sport should be done. Not to mention anything that helps people of all expressions feel supported and welcomed. I hope the US will follow that, and I think they will.”
More from The Future of Pairs:
Part I: Is There a Problem with Pairs?
