An athletic and personal journey that began 15 years ago has now granted Madison Chock and Evan Bates the one honor missing from their resume: an individual Olympic medal.

The three-time and reigning World ice dance champions, who competed at their fourth Olympic Winer Games together as a team and first as a married couple, performed a brilliant free dance at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 on Wednesday to capture the silver medal.

Combined with their two Olympic team event gold medals from 2022 and 2026, Chock and Bates are now tied for the most Olympic medals won by a U.S. skater, joining Beatrix Loughran, Nathan Chen, and Meryl Davis and Charlie White with three Olympic podium finishes. The seven-time U.S. champions are also the first U.S. ice dancers to win a gold and silver at the same Games.

"It's definitely a bittersweet feeling at the moment," Chock said. "We have so much to be proud of. We've had the most incredible career, 15 years on the ice together. It's our first Olympics as a married couple, and we delivered four of our best performances this week.

"We are proud of how we have handled ourselves and what we've accomplished here. We are grateful to our coaches and our families, who have come all this way and have supported us through it all. It means so much to us to be a part of the sport and to have contributed years of work and creativity to inspire the next generation of skaters to be the best they can be and be creative and love what they do."

After a narrow loss in the rhythm dance two days ago, Chock and Bates attacked their captivating flamenco-themed free dance to "Paint it Black" with fire and grace, gaining Level 4s for four of their elements, including their lifts, synchronized twizzles and a striking dance spin. Their curve-curve combination lift generated a program-high 15.29 points and their diagonal step sequence toward the end produced 12.08 points.

Their 134.67 free dance score is the best of the season for the Montreal-based team, as is their 224.39 total.  

This medal marks the sixth consecutive Olympic Games a U.S. ice dance team has stood on the podium. Beginning in 2006, Team USA has claimed one gold, three silver and two bronze medals.

"We just performed four times in six days at the Olympics," Bates said. "We have never done anything like it. It took so much mental strength and discipline to stay focused over the last six days and to deliver four great performances. At the end of the fourth one, the emotions just came flooding out. It's just a lot. We really did our best and that's something we will try and remember and focus on most. We delivered every time we stepped on the ice."

The fast rise of Emilea Zingas and Vadim Kolesnik continued in Milan, as the 2026 U.S. silver medalists performed an intense and dramatic best free skate to Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet," hitting unique positions in the lifts and spin and covering the ice with speed and attack. The rotational-stationary lift toward the end of the program was a particular highlight, earning the 2026 Four Continents champions 13.85 points.

Their 123.19 points in the free skate and total of 206.72 are both new personal bests, and they placed a remarkable fifth at their first Olympics.

"This is crazy. We're top five at the Olympics," Zingas said. "This is absolutely insane. If you told me one year ago today I'd be top five at the Olympics, I would have said, 'No, it's a lie.' So I'm happy to be here and to have the result that we did. It was a special performance for us. It maybe wasn't the cleanest and wasn't the most technically proficient that we're capable of, but we put our hearts into it, and I thought it was the most emotion that I've given on the ice so far this season, and it just felt magical.

"I'm proud of Vadym, and I'm proud of everybody who helped us along the way. I feel so grateful. My parents are in the stands. Vadym's family is in the stands. Our coaches were there standing by the boards. Even some of our coaches are in the stands here supporting us that couldn't be on the boards. It just feels like a group effort, and it feels like we all got rewarded today."

Kolesnik, who received his U.S. citizenship last summer, said the atmosphere and support was overwhelming.

"It's the most emotional competition of our entire lives with our families here," he said.

The Ukraine-born Kolesnik, the 2020 World junior champion with Avonley Nguyen, teamed with Zingas, a former singles skater, in 2022. Igor Shpilband, who coaches the skaters in Novi, Michigan, attributes their success to matching strong work ethics as well as innate ability.

"Emilia has always had the talent, she just needed a little finetuning," Shpilband said.  "She has progressed from one season to another. She got a lot more comfortable with the partnership, and Vadim learned how to present her better. And they both work equally hard."

Performing a detailed, nuanced program to selections from "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" as well as songs by Audiomachine, Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko gained five Level 4 elements, including a stunning synchronized twizzle sequence, dance spin and all three lifts. Their experience and comfort with their program, first used during the 2023-24 season, showed as they kept the audience rapt with their connection to each other and their characters.

The reigning U.S. bronze medalists earned international season's best free dance and overall scores of 119.47 and 197.62, respectively.

"It's been incredible," Carreira said of their first Olympic experience. "We are so happy with the two skates we put out. We have been working hard, and it was nice to see that hard work pay off."

"We had a tough fall [autumn] and we came back and went to work," Ponomarenko added. "We had a couple of weeks there where we put our heads down and had a lot of fun doing it. To be at the Olympics is special."

Coping with the pressure, both skaters said, was their biggest takeaway as they move forward in their careers.

"I think the pressure cooker that is the Olympics, you are in the spotlight and there is so much stress involved to compete in front of a big stage," said Ponomarenko, who with Carreira are three-time World Championships competitors. "We are going to take that experience into the next few seasons. I think we have grown as athletes just in these last few weeks."

Figure skating competition pauses on Thursday, with the men's free skate set for Friday at 1 p.m. ET.

For full results and to follow Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games, including the full schedule, bios, news and more, visit the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 Competition Central.