Welcome to your go-to information to the 2026 Winter Olympics. We’re monitoring all the things—from real-life heated rivalries (sure, they exist) to under-the-radar sports activities and shock standouts—so you may make amends for all of our protection in a single place.
Determine skating is among the most mesmerizing Olympic sports activities—each for the breathtaking shows of athleticism and the intricate, elegant outfits.
However these crystal-laden getups are extra than simply visible leisure: They’re crafted in accordance with particular guidelines. And athletes can get penalized—fairly heftily, really—for breaking them.
With the 2026 Winter Video games underway in northern Italy, we rounded up 4 determine skating outfit guidelines you most likely didn’t know.
The athletes can’t look too bare.
Based on the Worldwide Skating Union (ISU), which established the costume guidelines used within the 2026 Olympics, skaters’ outfits “should not give the impact of extreme nudity inappropriate for the self-discipline.” What constitutes “extreme nudity” is subjective, in fact, however Lisa McKinnon, a fancy dress designer in Los Angeles, says she avoids utilizing see-through materials and makes positive costumes match effectively in order that sure physique elements (like butt cheeks, for instance) aren’t revealed. Aside from that, her solely exhausting rule to make sure costumes don’t veer into the vulgar class is: “let’s not present nipples,” she says.
McKinnon designed 15 costumes for the 2026 Winter Video games, together with outfits for the three American ladies’s determine skaters—Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn, and Isabeau Levito—in addition to American pair ice dancers Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, and Korean determine skaters Haein Lee and Jia Shin.
In fact, the nudity rule doesn’t imply skaters are fully lined in material—that might be impractical for competitors—or that they should keep away from all issues attractive. McKinnon provides the instance of the outfit she designed for Amber Glenn’s quick program, which is about to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” The costume, which options lace, layered necklaces, and burgundy-colored material that drapes off her shoulders, “is within the route of extra mature and attractive with out pushing it an excessive amount of,” McKinnon explains.
Their clothes can also’t be “garish” or “theatrical.”
The ISU guidelines additionally states costumes “should be modest, dignified and applicable for athletic competitors—not garish or theatrical in design.” Once more, these phrases are all fairly subjective (in case you’re questioning, garish means “ clothed in vivid colours” or “excessively or disturbingly vivid,” per Merriam-Webster). However McKinnon says she adheres to this regulation by avoiding “gimmicky” parts, like an athlete altering some a part of their costume mid-performance, for instance.
