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Figure skating is a true family sport: after all, many athletes get into it because their parents or siblings are or were skaters. 

Sibling teams are quite common in Ice Dance and Pair Skating but it is something truly special if members of the same family make it to the Olympic Games, and there are some great examples of second-generation Olympians competing at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

The family business

Of all the skaters in Milan, Ice Dancer Anthony Ponomarenko (USA), pictured above with partner Christina Carreira has the most prominent parents. Marina Klimova & Sergei Ponomarenko, who competed for the Soviet Union and the Unified Team, were a top Ice Dance couple from the 80s to the early 90s. As well as being 1992 Olympic Champions, they were 1988 Olympic silver and 1984 Olympic bronze medalists. 

Anthony Ponomarenko (USA) has followed in the skate tracks of his triple-Olympic medalist parents by reaching the Milan Games with Christina Carreira © Getty Images

“It means everything,” Anthony said.

“If you really look at how many people make it to the Olympics in the entire world, the percentage is very, very small. So just being here and being the third person in my family, it's a huge honor. 

“All the sacrifices that I had to make, I can't imagine what my parents had to make as well. Every story isn't linear, and I'm proud to call myself an Olympian, and I'm proud to have parents that are Olympians as well.”

Marina Klimova & Sergei Ponomarenko were Olympic Champions in Albertville (FRA) in 1992 © Getty Images

Ponomarenko’s parents were incredibly happy when he and Carreira qualified for the US Olympic team. 

“My dad called me, he said, ‘I always knew that you would become an Olympian’. My mom … when I called her, it was just tears.”

However, neither Marina Klimova nor Sergei Ponomarenko will come to Milan: they are too nervous to watch their son competing live. 

“They're very superstitious. I don't think they've watched a live performance, or even on TV,” Anthony revealed.

Sibling inspiration

Lithuania’s Allison Reed comes from an Ice Dance family as well. Her older sister Cathy Reed and her late brother Chris Reed competed together at the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Winter Games, representing Japan. Chris became a three-time Olympian when he returned for the Olympic Winter Games 2018 with new partner Kana Muramoto. 

Lithuania's Allison Reed, dancing with Saulius Ambrulevicius, sees her skating siblings as her role models © ISU

Cathy Reed is in Milan as a coach for Japan. Allison, who is competing with partner Saulius Ambrulevicius, always makes sure she has a photo of her brother Chris with her.

For Reed, her siblings are her role models. “Always, they still are to this day. Definitely my peers, they're the people I look up to,” she noted.

Cathy and Chris Reed represented Japan at the 2014 and 2018 Olympic Games © Getty Images

Allison was very excited that her sister came as a coach to Milan. 

“With my parents coming as well it will just be an amazing experience that I'm really looking forward to. 

“When I saw Cathy at the Olympic Village when we first arrived, we just hugged and cried for like five minutes. We've already recreated some photos that we had taken back in Vancouver.”

Continuing the family tradition

Two-time ISU World Champion Ilia Malinin (USA) continues a strong family tradition. His parents and coaches Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov competed in the 1998 and in 2002 Olympic Winter Games for Uzbekistan. 

Ilia Malinin (USA) and his father, coach and double-Olympian Roman Skorniakov (UZB) © Getty Images

“Starting from a young age coming here to the Olympics was such a dream of mine,” Malinin commented.

“It is something that also runs in my family and it's so nice to keep that tradition up.

“What my parents tell me a lot about the Olympics is that it is really just another competition, so the way that they want me to view it as is to train how I would for any other competition,” he added.

The 2022 Olympic silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan follows in the footsteps of his father Masakazu, who skated in 1992 and 1994 at the Olympic Winter Games in Albertville (FRA) and Lillehammer (NOR), and 2024 ISU European Champion Loena Hendrickx of Belgium is coached by her brother Jorik, who competed in at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi (CHN) 2014 and PyeongChang (KOR) 2018. 

A living legacy

Stepping on to the Olympic ice means a lot to Maxim Naumov (USA), whose parents Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov tragically perished together with other members of the figure skating community in the Washington, DC plane crash in January 2025. Shishkova & Naumov were ISU World Pair Skating Champions in 1994 and two-time Olympians in Albertville and Lillehammer. 

Maxim Naumov (USA)  holds a photograph of his late parents after competing at the US Championships in January 2026 © Getty Images

Since Naumov started skating as a five-year-old, he and his parents, who coached him, were working towards that goal to get to the Olympic Games. 

“That’s the thing. It's been what we were talking about forever,” Maxim noted. 

“Finally getting a chance to live it, not just have it be a vision or be a dream, but actually coming true. Sometimes you have to look around, pinch yourself a little bit, see if it's real. It definitely is. But I've been doing a lot of that [pinching myself] recently. 

“This opportunity is just so massive, so much time and hard work to get to this point.”

The history boys

Swedish Ice Dancer Nikolaj Majorov has a special story connected to the Olympic Winter Games. His older brother Alexander participated in the Games of 2014, and four years ago, Nikolaj competed in Singles in PyeongChang. 

“It is something special,” Nikolaj said. “It's what our parents [and coaches] worked for of course. It's every athlete's dream and to also continue the tradition is something extra special, especially also for our parents.”

Nikolaj Majorov (SWE) made Olympic history when he took to the ice with Milla Ruud Reitan in Milan © Getty Images

In Milan, Nikolaj has made history as the first figure skater to compete in both Ice Dance and Singles skating at the Olympic Winter Games. Nikolaj and partner Milla Ruud Reitan are also the first Ice Dancers to represent Sweden at Olympic Winter Games. 

Nikolaj still has a hard time believing it. “It feels great, but at the same time I haven't still woken up to the feeling yet. It feels crazy, unbelievable.”