of 2026 Winter Olympics I’m putting it in 90s pop Everything from the Spice Girls to the Backstreet Boys to Britney has been in the spotlight.

There’s a moment in the Winter Olympics when the sport itself hands the athlete an auxiliary cord and says, OK, show me the real you. No discussion. There are no gray areas. There’s no hiding behind an instrumental score or vague “classical crossover” vibe.

In ice dancing, the music is determined by rhythm dance. The International Skating Union chooses a theme for each cycle, and skaters around the world reorganize their souls around that theme.

Elegant depending on the year. musicals and operettas. broadway hand. Showtune smile. Other years, it gets sweaty and technical, with Latin rhythms, sharp hips, fast feet, everything dialed up. And this year, ice dancing wasn’t just a look back. It hit the big guns right into the 90s and never bothered to get up in the air.

Milan-Cortina Olympics and Olympic figure skating go retro with 1990s pop music and style

At the Milan-Cortina Games, ice dancing went completely retro. Look at the research and songs. The Wall Street Journal points out in a special feature on Monday, February 9th.. Not in a wink-wink kind of way. I don’t mean “inspired” in a polite way. This is genuine, arena-sized nostalgia. The kind of thing that reminds you of where you were when music videos mattered and pop stars felt like cartoons brought to life.

From the Spice Girls to the Backstreet Boys to Ricky Martin to Daft Punk, the soundtrack now emanating from the Olympic arena sounds like a burnt CD from a middle schooler’s backpack. Songs that once lived on MTV, at roller rinks, at school dances, and in the background of live shows that felt simpler because we didn’t know anything about them yet. And somehow it works.

Case in point: Great Britain. Lyla Fear and Lewis Gibson. If ice dancing were a runway — and let’s be honest, it already is — this would be the moment everyone would remember. Fear skating to the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” isn’t just a reference to Ginger Spice. she become she. The Union Jack dress, the confidence that went up to eleven, the attitude baked into every inch of her. Meanwhile, Gibson is going all out, doing intricate footwork at Olympic speed while rocking Scary Spice’s leopard-print sequined version like it’s the most natural thing in the world to wear.

That’s bold. That’s ridiculous. It’s perfect. And this is the important point of ice dancing. Ice dancing lives and dies by effort. Don’t be half-hearted about your own music. Viewers know. The judge knows. Your partner definitely knows. Fear and Gibson ironically don’t skate “Wannabe.” They skate around like the song still matters. Looks like it’s still a hit. Like something appropriate for this stage.

That was the quiet magic of this year’s rhythm dance. These are not new programs. It’s a love letter. These are the athletes saying, “You know what? This music nurtured us, shaped us, and stayed with us. Now let this music take us onto the Olympic ice.

Throughout the competition, teams lean toward the here and now. Backstreet Boys tracks transform into tightly wound stories about aspiration and precision. Ricky Martin is bringing hip to a sport that already thrives on rhythm, but he’s rarely given permission to go that far. Daft Punk add a smooth, futuristic pulse with a slightly retro feel, a future everyone imagined but never realized in the late ’90s.

Ice dancers at the Milan-Cortina Games love the 1990s and are bringing back nostalgic sounds

Ice dancing has always been closer to pop culture than other disciplines. Single skating is often overshadowed by orchestral drama. The pair leans toward epic romance. Ice dance? Ice Dance would like to talk to you. We want to tell a story that even people who have never laced up their skates in their life will know.

That accessibility is why this ’90s theme has exploded beyond the links. Social media clips travel around the world within minutes. Even non-skate fans instantly recognize the music.

You don’t need to understand the levels or key points to understand why this is the case. spice girls Routines are fun. Just feel it. And in a sport that can sometimes struggle to convey its greatness to a general audience, that feeling is important.

It also reminds us that the Olympics are not just about records and medals. They are about moments. About cultures colliding with competition in human ways. Watching elite athletes put everything they have into their choreography to the tunes that used to play on radio cassettes is strangely grounding. These skaters, like any other skater, grew up absorbing all the music around them and forming an emotional connection to it long before they became part of a judging sheet.

It’s brave to skate to pop music at the Olympics. Classical music provides the cover. Pop songs aren’t like that. Everyone knows them well. Every beat feels familiar. Every lyric has its problems. Once you select that, you’re going to select exposure. And that’s exactly why it works.

This year’s Rhythm Dance isn’t about pretending the ’90s were perfect. It’s just acknowledging that they were loud, colorful, and unforgettable. It leans toward joy, memory, and common cultural abbreviations that still unite people across borders. Spice Girls songs don’t belong to one country. The same goes for the Backstreet Boys chorus. These footsteps continued. They still do that.

In Milan-Cortina, ice dancers are proving that the sport doesn’t have to be stripped of its individuality to be taken seriously. Let Nostalgia spin, jump, and slide as you carve your way into Olympic history.

A few years from now, people won’t just remember who won the gold medal. They’ll remember the moment the Olympic crowd lost their minds because “Wannabe” started playing. They’ll remember wearing sequins, strutting, and their shock when they discovered that figure skating, at its best, can feel like a party and a competition at the same time.

to be honest? I would have loved that in the 90s.