2026 winter olympics women single skating free skating

 

2026 Olympic Games: Women’s Figure Skating Free Skate prediction, pick for Thursday 2/19/26

Griffin Wong provides his preview, prediction, and pick for the Women’s Figure Skating (Free Skate) at the 2026 Olympic Games.

When the figure skating portion of the 2026 Winter Olympics began a week and a half ago, it appeared as if the United States would be a dominant force in the sport. That impression only grew stronger when the American skaters managed to take home gold in the team competition.

But Madison Chock and Evan Bates controversially missed out on gold and settled for silver in the ice dance and Ilia Malinin stunningly fell twice in the men’s free skate competition. The women’s free skate competition, scheduled for 1 p.m. ET (7 p.m. local), is the United States’ last chance of winning a second figure skating gold.

Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto is a +100 favoriteopens in a new tab to take home her country’s fifth figure skating medal at DraftKings Sportsbookopens in a new tab. Her countrywoman Ami Nakai (+200) follows closely, with American Alysa Liu (+300) ranking third.

Women’s Figure Skating Free Skate prediction, pick

Sakamoto, a three-time Olympic medalist, was the best performer in the short program portion of the team event, finishing with a 78.88 after nailing a difficult triple flip/triple toe loop combination on her fourth trick, and she executed every element nearly flawlessly. She then one-upped herself two days later in the free skate portion, recording a massive 148.62 — 8.45 points better than second-place Anastasiia Gubanova. It wasn’t quite enough for Japan to overtake the United States for the overall gold, as Malinin came up clutch in the men’s free skate portion, but it established her as the woman to beat.

As Malinin demonstrated, though, early success in a competition where the margins are as fine as those in figure skating doesn’t guarantee a medal. Sakamoto’s high degree of difficulty and track record makes her the favorite, but she currently has a deficit to make up, having finished 1.48 points behind her teammate Nakai during the short skate portion. That’s hardly an impossible task; eight skaters were within eight points of Nakai’s mark, and each jump in Sakamoto’s program is worth between 2.7 and 9.5 points for baseline execution.

Nakai should put up a steep challenge. Her routine contains a triple lutz/triple toe loop combination, a more difficult pairing than Sakamoto’s trick. In October, she recorded a 149.08 free skate, which wasn’t quite as high as Sakamoto’s 155.77 from the 2022 ISU World Championships or her 150.13 from November but would force Sakamoto to set a new season best to claim gold if she can replicate it this afternoon. The 17-year-old didn’t compete in the team portion, which allowed only one skater per singles event, but that’s more a function of Japan’s strength as a skating nation than hers as an individual athlete.

If Liu skates up to her full potential, she has a chance of making up the deficit. She recorded a 150.97 free skate during the 2025 ISU World Team Trophy last April, a score that would likely be good enough to claim gold if Sakamoto doesn’t improve on her performance in the team event. But Liu hasn’t reached those heights yet this season, topping out at 146.70 in the ISU Grand Prix Final in December, and it was Amber Glenn who represented the United States during the team event. Liu’s short program did include a triple lutz/triple loop combo, a more difficult trick than even Nakai’s, but she had a significantly lower composition score than Sakamoto in the short program, and those marks are more design-based than execution-based so could be more rigid. She could be forced to execute even more cleanly than Nakai and Sakamoto if her free skate is of similar composition.

Nakai has more room to improve in her presentation and skating skills than even Liu, as she recorded an 8.54 or lower in all of the program components, while Sakamoto’s program was more tightly-composed, putting the pressure on her to execute at a near-perfect level. But the three jumping elements in her short skate had a higher baseline difficulty than either Sakamoto’s or Liu’s, and her lead isn’t entirely insignificant. If Sakamoto were in peak form, I’d feel more comfortable backing her to catch up to her compatriot, but Nakai ranks five places ahead of Liu and seven ahead of Sakamoto in the World Rankings. The Niigata native should bring home Japan’s sixth gold of these Games.