From Lenny Kravitz to the Spice Girls, Nineties Music Takes Over Olympic Figure Skating Ice Dance Event

It turns out Ricky Martin’s appearance during Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Sunday night wasn’t the last time viewers would hear from the singer this week: the Latin superstar was all over the speakers at the Winter Olympics figure skating competition Monday, as the world’s best ice dancers took to the arena for the rhythm dance event.

Martin’s 1995 hit, “Maria” was used by no less than three ice dance teams for the rhythm dance (formerly known as the “short dance” or short program), with couples from Finland, Sweden, and Spain all choosing the upbeat hit for their performances. While the specific song choice of “Maria” was a coincidence, the genre of the track was not, as ice dancers were assigned a “1990s” theme for the rhythm dance this season.

Unlike the men’s, women’s, and pair disciplines, where skaters can perform to any style of music, the rhythm dance has always been dictated by a specific style — or rhythm — of music, as chosen by the International Skating Union (for comparison, the style issued for the 2022 Olympics was “street style rhythms”). This year’s assignment was to skate to “The Music, Dance Styles and Feeling of the 1990s,” with teams having to choose a song that was released during that decade.

That meant plenty of boy bands, girl groups, and Eurodance hits on Monday, as 23 teams took to the ice for their Milan Olympics debut. Leading the way after the rhythm dance are Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron who skated to Madonna’s “Vogue.” While today’s rhythm dance-winning routine has yet to be posted online, you can watch their performance to “Vogue” from the Olympics team event below. This is the team’s first year together after Fournier Beaudry’s former partner Nikolaj Sørensen received a six-year ban for an alleged sexual assault. The ban was later overturned on jurisdictional grounds but remains under appeal.

Three-time World Champions and seven-time U.S. Champs Madison Chock and Evan Bates are close behind in second, after having performed their rhythm dance to a Lenny Kravitz medley of “American Woman,” “Fly Away,” “Always on the Run” and “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” The duo also won a gold medal in the team event with team USA over the weekend.

In third place — and the bronze medal position — are five-time Canadian champions, Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who performed to a mash-up of “Supermodel (You Better Work)” by RuPaul and “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred. They took the assignment seriously, interspersing moves from ballroom culture into their routine while showing off some glammed-up looks on the ice. Gilles and Poirier finished second at the last two World Championships and will be looking to repeat on the podium — if not take a step up — in Milan.

Close behind in fourth place is the British duo of Lilah Fair and Lewis Gibson, who paid tribute to the Spice Girls with their rhythm dance performance. With Fair sporting a Ginger Spice-inspired Union Jack dress (and Gibson paying tribute to Scary Spice’s animal print garb?), the two skated to a medley of “Wannabe, “Who Do You Think You Are?” and “Spice Up Your Life.”

Rounding out the top five after the rhythm dance portion of the competition are hometown faves, Charlène Guignard and Marco Fabbri from Italy, who skated to “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” and the BSB deep cut, “That’s the Way I Like It.”

The musical choices for the figure skating competition has been a source of controversy over the last few weeks, after some skaters revealed that they were not able to get the rights to the songs they wanted to perform to. Spanish men’s singles skater Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate went viral for a Minions-inspired program that sees him wearing a yellow T-shirt and overalls like the characters. Though Sabate was initially told that he didn’t have permission to skate to the Minions soundtrack, the copyright issue has since been resolved with Universal Studios.

The 2026 Milan Winter Olympics figure skating competition continues this week with the ice dance free dance, along with the men’s, women’s and pairs events.