Golden Waltz Returns to Ice Dance for This Season, Reports Dancemagazine
Senior-level ice dance teams competing this season are required to include the intricate Golden Waltz pattern in their rhythm dance, marking a return of ballroom-rooted pattern dances to elite competition, dancemagazine.com reported.
The Return of the Golden Waltz
The International Skating Union discussed the reintroduction of pattern dances during the 2026 Olympic Games. While the ISU previously eliminated patterns at the senior level, the governing body now mandates the Golden Waltz for the upcoming season. Skaters must still pass tests demonstrating mastery of 23 total patterns in the U.S. as they work up to the senior level. Until 2010, Olympic-level skaters competed patterns as the compulsory dance, which evolved into the short dance before becoming the rhythm dance.
Days after competing in their first Olympics in February, U.S. ice dancers Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko returned to the practice rink to learn a waltz. Carreira and Ponomarenko first showcased a rhythm dance incorporating the Golden Waltz pattern, set to music from My Fair Lady, at the Summer Sizzler in Boston in August.
When someone starts ice dance, they’re immediately put into pattern dances. It’s in our DNA and something I feel like I’ve been missing the last few years.
During late September at the 2026 ISU CS Ondrej Nepela Trophy held in Bratislava, Slovakia, fellow competitors Caroline Green and Michael Parsons premiered their own version of the Golden Waltz. Parsons noted that watching icons of ice dance and their technique informed how they wanted to skate the pattern.
Contrasting Interpretations on the Ice
Carreira and Ponomarenko chose the old-Hollywood appeal of My Fair Lady for their waltz. Green and Parsons took a less conventional approach by portraying the Aaron Burr-Alexander Hamilton duel. Former Italian ice dancer Massimo Scali, who choreographed the Olympic programs for Alysa Liu, brought Green’s vision to life by setting the Golden Waltz portion to “Your Obedient Servant” from Hamilton.
Skated at 186 beats per minute in 3/4 time, the rhythm dances of both teams feature identical Golden Waltz steps. Green noted that the dance requires precise technique and that it is easy to fall behind the timing without super-precise execution. Some ice dancers have applauded the return of pattern dance because it allows for greater objectivity in a highly subjective judged sport. Parsons explained that skaters can be directly compared in terms of skating skills because everyone is performing the same steps.
Throughout the summer, 2022 Olympic medalist Tim Koleto assisted several of Japan’s premier ice dance groups with mastering the Golden Waltz. He called the reintroduction of the pattern necessary to preserve the sport as it aims to stay relevant for a modern audience competing with online stimuli, describing the move as a strategy to find middle ground.
For Ponomarenko, the return of the Golden Waltz carries a deep personal connection. His parents, 1992 Olympic champions Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, invented the pattern and first performed it in Moscow in 1987 before the ISU adopted it as a compulsory dance.
Who would have thought when we were putting that together it would someday not just be a pattern, but our son would be skating it?