Memorable Olympic Figure Skating Music, Boléro and Beyond

Hum the opening of Boléro to a skating fan and there's a good chance they'll picture two skaters in purple, kneeling on the ice. That's how strongly a few Olympic programs have tied themselves to their music. This page goes through the pieces people remember most, roughly in order, and what made each one work.

Why the music matters

Music isn't background in figure skating. Judges mark how well a program is built around its music and how well the skater interprets it, through the composition and presentation components of the score. The music also decides where the jumps and spins can sit, so it shapes the whole program. Our page on how Olympic skating is scored explains where those marks fit.

For decades the rules narrowed the choices too. Singles and pairs skaters couldn't use music with lyrics, so their programs leaned on classical pieces, opera and film scores. Our article on the music rules of figure skating covers how that rule worked and how it ended.

The classical years

Boléro, Sarajevo 1984. Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skated their free dance to Ravel's Boléro and earned twelve perfect 6.0s, nine of them for artistic impression. The music was too long even after cutting, so they began on their knees and didn't put a blade on the ice for about 18 seconds, because the timing only started once they were skating. It's one of the cleverest bits of program planning in Olympic history.

Carmen, Calgary 1988. Katarina Witt of East Germany and Debi Thomas of the United States both skated their free programs to Bizet's Carmen, and the press called it the "Battle of the Carmens". Witt won her second Olympic title, Elizabeth Manley of Canada took silver, and Thomas won bronze.

Lyra Angelica, Nagano 1998. Michelle Kwan skated her free program to Lyra Angelica, a concerto for harp and string orchestra by the English composer William Alwyn. It's gentle music for a big Olympic moment, and Kwan took silver behind Tara Lipinski. Her program is still one of the most loved in Olympic skating.

Film and stage music

The Man in the Iron Mask, Salt Lake City 2002. Alexei Yagudin won gold with a free skate set to music from the film The Man in the Iron Mask. Four of the nine judges gave him a perfect 6.0 for presentation, and every judge placed him first. Film scores like this one gave skaters big, dramatic music without breaking the no-lyrics rule.

Seimei, Pyeongchang 2018. Yuzuru Hanyu built his free skate on music by Shigeru Umebayashi from the 2001 Japanese film Onmyoji, playing the 10th-century court diviner Abe no Seimei. He broke the free skate world record in the 2015-16 season. He won his second Olympic title with it, a few months after an ankle injury.

Moulin Rouge, Pyeongchang 2018. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skated their free dance to music from Moulin Rouge, including El Tango de Roxanne and Come What May. They won gold with a world record total, by 0.79 points. As ice dancers they'd been allowed vocals for years, and the film's songs gave the program a story the audience already knew.

Gershwin, Vancouver 2010. Not every classic came from a film. Yuna Kim of South Korea skated her free program to George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F and set world records for the free skate and the total. It showed that a concert piece can carry an Olympic free skate just as well as a famous soundtrack.

When lyrics arrived

The International Skating Union later relaxed the ban on lyrics, and its rules for singles and pairs now say that vocal music with lyrics is permitted. Since then, pop songs, musical theater and rock have become ordinary at every level.

Rocketman, Beijing 2022. Nathan Chen won gold with a free skate to Elton John's music from the film Rocketman, landing five quads. At the same Games he set a short program world record of 113.97.

Laufey and MacArthur Park, Milano Cortina 2026. Alysa Liu skated her short program to a song by the Icelandic singer Laufey, who posted her delight online afterward. For the free skate, Liu chose Donna Summer's MacArthur Park. The song had been suggested to her, and she said finding the 16-minute suite version "took it to another level". She won gold with it.

Music stories from Milano Cortina

Lyrics opened up a huge library of popular music, and with it the question of rights. The ISU has said it has no contractual relationship with the music licensing platform ClicknClear, and it is up to skaters to make sure their music is cleared. Spain's Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté found out the Friday before the Games that his Minions program wasn't cleared. After a public outcry Universal agreed, and the last piece, Pharrell Williams' Freedom, was approved about two hours before the figure skating began.

He finished 25th in the short program, one place short of the free skate, but he got to skate as a Minion at the Olympics. The other music talking point came from ice dance. Czech siblings Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek skated their rhythm dance partly to an AI-generated track in the style of 1990s Bon Jovi. It broke no ISU rule, but it drew a lot of criticism from fans and writers.

The music at a glance

Here are the pieces from this page in one place. Results are for the event each program was skated in.

Choosing music for your own skating

The thread running through all of these is fit. Each piece suited the skater's style and gave the program a shape, a build, a story or a mood the audience could follow. That's as true for a first adult program as it is for an Olympic free skate, and you don't need a famous piece to get it right.

If you're picking music for a program, our guide to choosing music for your skating program walks through it, including timing and editing. If you compete, sort out what music your event accepts and how to license it before you spend months choreographing. For the performances themselves, our page on the best Olympic performances has more of the stories.

Sources

Program music and results come from official Olympic results and reporting from each Games, and the rule on lyrics comes from the ISU's own rulebook. Where sources disagreed about a piece, we left it out.

• Olympics.com, Torvill and Dean steal hearts on Valentine's Day, and Classic FM on the Boléro edit and kneeling start.
• Wikipedia, Battle of the Carmens, and UPI's report from Calgary (February 1988).
• NPR, Skating upset (February 1998).
• Dawn and the Lawrence Journal-World on the 2002 men's event.
• Kyoto Shimbun on Seimei (March 2018), and Shigeru Umebayashi's site.
• Olympics.com, Virtue and Moir smash record for gold, and Eurosport (Reuters) on the free dance music.
• Christian Science Monitor on Yuna Kim's record free skate (February 2010), and AP on Nathan Chen's 2022 gold.
• NBC New York, Laufey's reaction to Alysa Liu's skate, and NBC Bay Area, Alysa Liu on her music (March 2026).
• ISU Sports Rules, Single & Pair Skating and Ice Dance, as of 12 June 2026, Rules 611, 612, 620 and 621: vocal music with lyrics is permitted in singles and pairs.
• NBC New York (The Associated Press), Minions music leads to nightmare for Olympic skater: the ISU's statement that it has no contractual relationship with ClicknClear.
• AP, Spanish skater says it's amazing to bring Minions to Olympic ice after music dispute (February 2026).
• TechCrunch, Czech ice dancers skate to AI music at the Olympics (February 2026).