Vadym Kolesnik: “I might get in trouble for saying this, but Montreal is very, very tied to the judging. Still, there are teams that break through thanks to talent and training, like Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.”
Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik have had a breakthrough Olympic season, overcoming injuries and tough competition to contend for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, with their sights set on both Milan 2026 and the 2030 Games.
original source: Suspilne Sport dd. 8th January 2026 by Diana Trigub and Katerina Makarevska
The Olympic season has been a breakthrough for Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik. After a highly successful Grand Prix series, the skaters have a chance to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in their careers and will compete for this right at the U.S. Championships. Kolesnik spoke about the journey to this dream in an interview with Suspilne Sport. Here’s a translation of his comments.
Vadym Kolesnik, a 24-year-old skater from Kharkiv, is one of the new leaders of the U.S. national team in ice dance. In 2015, while still competing in novice, he won his last medal for Ukraine – a silver in ice dance at a tournament in Budapest with partner Zlata Yefymenko. By 2017, Kolesnik began his junior career as part of Team USA.
“When I was 15, Igor Shpilband took me into his group,” Kolesnik recalls. He moved to the U.S. to train in Michigan with the renowned American coach.
Kolesnik paired with Avonley Nguyen, and together they won the 2020 World Junior Championship title. Soon after, the duo split. It took two years to find a new partner. Eventually, Kolesnik teamed up with Emilea Zingas — an American who previously represented Cyprus and had no prior ice dance experience.
“I was in Ukraine when [Igor] called me about Emilea,” Vadym says. “It was my 20th birthday, I was with my family. He calls and says, ‘I’m at a competition in Germany. I have the perfect girl for you. She’s a single skater.’ I wasn’t sure about the idea, but when we tried skating together, something just clicked. Emilea could sense which direction I wanted to go. She’s very talented and works hard. Her understanding of figure skating is better than many people’s. I think that’s why we clicked as a team.”
Kolesnik never considered representing Ukraine again, and says he received no offers from the federation. “No one actually offered,” he explains. “I’ve lived in America for nine years. I don’t think they’d even let me go, because America has invested a lot in me.”
For three seasons, Zingas and Kolesnik couldn’t break through the internal competition to make the World Championships. They finished fourth at Nationals twice, including in 2025. After that, they took a break from training so Vadym could recover from a groin injury before the Olympic season.
“I had surgery,” Kolesnik shares. “I didn’t skate for three or four months. I had a sports hernia and a torn labrum. I skated with pain for three seasons: after two hours, I couldn’t do anything. That’s why I wasn’t in top form at last year’s U.S. Nationals.”
The season after recovery became a turning point for them. In October, Zingas and Kolesnik won their first Grand Prix medal – silver at the China event – with three personal bests, finishing just behind teammates Madison Chock and Evan Bates, top Olympic gold contenders.
At the final Grand Prix event in Finland, the duo took bronze and had the highest technical score in the rhythm dance. These results qualified Zingas and Kolesnik for their first Grand Prix Final, where they finished sixth.
“Last season, we trained two to three hours a day,” Kolesnik recalls. “Now we try to skate five to six hours, running through several programs. Before, my body just couldn’t handle that.”
Next up is the U.S. Nationals – the final step before the Olympic team is named. The U.S. has the maximum three ice dance spots for the Olympics. Now, Kolesnik, who received American citizenship in August 2025, is eligible to compete for one of them.
The clear favorites for the title are three-time world champions Chock and Bates, who won the Grand Prix Final this season. The battle for the second and third spots is fierce, with contenders including Zingas and Kolesnik, current silver medalists Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, and last year’s bronze medalists Caroline Green and Michael Parsons.
Kolesnik also doesn’t rule out 2018 Olympic medalists Maia and Alex Shibutani, who returned to the ice after a seven-year break. “They’re still contenders,” he says. “If they’d come back last season, it would have been easier for them, but Maia had health issues. Even though they lost to America’s eighth-ranked pair [Katarina Wolfkostin and Dimitry Tsarevski] at the Grand Prix in Japan, their scores keep rising.”
“I don’t want to jinx it, but we’ll try [to make the Olympics]. I don’t know how it will turn out. The competition is tough. Chock and Bates are the best, but any pair from second to ninth could go. Everyone is worthy and training at their peak. We put ourselves in a good position by making the Grand Prix Final, since only two U.S. pairs went to Nagoya. We have a chance. And if we make the Olympics, we’ll achieve one of our biggest goals.”
“I’ll still try to beat Chock and Bates,” Vadym adds. “Maybe it’s impossible, but I’ll try.”
At the same time, Kolesnik acknowledges that it’s tough for teams coached outside the Montreal Ice Academy, led by Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon, and Romain Haguenauer, to compete. Their teams, including Chock and Bates, have dominated ice dance for about a decade and swept the podium at the last Grand Prix Final.
“I might get in trouble for saying this, but Montreal is very, very tied to the judging. Still, there are teams that break through thanks to talent and training, like the Canadians [Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier]. But Montreal is still Montreal. Now, when everyone retires after the Olympics, maybe they’ll start to decline too.”
Despite strong chances for Milan 2026, the main goal for Kolesnik and Zingas is the next Olympics, set for 2030 in the French Alps.
“I want to skate until I win the Olympics or at least achieve what I want in life. So if it takes ten years, we’ll skate for ten years,” Vadym concludes.
Related topics: Emilea Zingas, Vadym Kolesnik
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