Maya Usova & Alexander Zhulin: The Skating Love Story That Wasn’t

There are some skating teams you remember because of their medals, and then there are the ones you remember because of how they made you feel. For me, Maya Usova and Alexander Zhulin will always belong to that second category.

I was already hopelessly in love with ice dance by the time Usova and Zhulin came along. I had been watching skating since I was a kid, had fallen completely under the spell of Torvill and Dean, and by the time the 1990s rolled around, I was paying attention to everything. And then there was Usova and Zhulin. Something about them grabbed me immediately. They weren't flashy in the way some teams were flashy. They didn't seem desperate to convince you that what they were doing was important.

They just danced and somehow, that was enough.

There was a gentleness to their skating that I found completely intoxicating. Their edges were deep and gorgeous, their movements seemed to melt into one another, and there was an intimacy between them that made you feel as though you were watching something private. Of course, they were married. So naturally, my younger skating-obsessed brain put two and two together and came up with five.

They were husband and wife, skating partners, and they spent virtually every waking moment together. They looked completely connected on the ice, so surely this was the ultimate skating love story. Right?

Well...

About that. I'm getting ahead of myself, because before I knew anything about the drama, I simply loved watching them. And then there was the fact that they trained in Lake Placid, which made them even more fascinating to me.

Lake Placid wasn't just a place. Not to someone who loved skating. It was the place. The Olympics. The Miracle on Ice. The skating history. The rink. The mountains. The mythology of it all.

And here were these Russian ice dancers, training in Lake Placid, creating these extraordinary programs that seemed to fit the atmosphere perfectly. It felt almost cinematic to me.

And their programs? Just wow. Blues for Klook was one of those pieces that made me stop whatever I was doing. It was cool and sexy and jazzy and completely unlike the traditional romantic ice dance programs that could sometimes blend together. They didn't just skate to the blues, they were the blues. There was this wonderful looseness to it, even though you knew underneath all of that apparent ease was an extraordinary amount of technical precision.

Then there was The Seasons. I still adore that program. It was beautiful in a completely different way, more theatrical, more delicate, almost dreamlike. And the tangos?. There was something about Usova and Zhulin doing tango that made the television suddenly feel very small. They understood the tension of it. The little moments when one skater seemed to challenge the other. They could make an entire relationship play out in a few seconds.

And that's probably why what happened off the ice surprised me so much.

Because when you're watching ice dance as a fan, particularly when you're young, you tend to believe the story you're being shown.

If two people look deeply connected, you assume they are deeply connected. If they're married, skating together, winning medals and looking impossibly elegant while doing it, you assume you've stumbled onto some kind of fairy tale.

Usova and Zhulin won Olympic bronze in Albertville in 1992. Two years later, they won Olympic silver in Lillehammer. They became World champions in 1993. From the outside, it looked like everything was working. But the reality was considerably messier.

Their marriage eventually fell apart, and Zhulin's relationship with Oksana Grishuk became part of the complicated personal drama surrounding the ice dance world of that era. And suddenly the skating fan in me had one of those moments where you go: Wait. WHAT?

Because I had spent all of those years looking at these two people and seeing one thing, and it turned out there was another story happening underneath it. That is one of the strange things about being a longtime skating fan. We spend years watching these athletes learn how to portray emotion and then sometimes we discover that the emotions weren't entirely confined to the choreography.

The soap opera was happening backstage, too, and honestly? That probably shouldn't change the way I remember them.

Because when I think of Maia Usova and Alexander Zhulin now, I don't primarily think about the complicated personal history. I think about the gorgeous lines and the incredible edges and that almost impossible ability to make two people look like they were moving from the same brain.

And I think about being a skating fan in that era. There was something wonderful about watching competitions before everything was instantly available online. You waited for the broadcast and recorded them if you were really serious. And if you were lucky, you got to see your favorite skaters in person. Those memories stick.

Years later, when I look back at Usova and Zhulin, I realize that what I loved about them was something simple. They were artists. They brought something different to ice dance, and they made me look at the sport differently.

The Twizzle is about the skating we remember — the programs that stopped us in our tracks, the skaters who became part of our lives, and the moments that still make us feel something decades later.

Because sometimes the best part of skating isn't the score. It's the memory.

Welcome to The Twizzle: Why Ice Dance Still Has My Heart

Some loves never really go away. For me, that love is ice dance.

My first real memory of figure skating goes all the way back to the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. I was captivated by the combination of athleticism, music, movement, and sheer magic happening on the ice. A few years later, in 1984, Torvill and Dean took that magic to an entirely different level in Sarajevo. I was asleep in my parents' living room, and my mom shook me awake to experience the magic. Watching them skate was one of those moments that sticks with you forever. 

By 1994, I was covering figure skating professionally, beginning what would become roughly a decade of writing about the sport. I covered competitions, Olympics, skaters, and the wonderfully complicated world that surrounds figure skating. Eventually, though, I stepped away and moved into other areas of journalism and entertainment writing.

But I never really left ice dance behind because the fascination remained. The music. The costumes. The storytelling. The incredible technical demands. The partnerships that can take years to develop. And, perhaps most importantly, the way two people can get on the ice and somehow make it look as though they are moving as one.

So, welcome to The Twizzle.

This is a site born out of nostalgia, certainly, but it isn't going to live in the past.

We're going to dig into the great dance teams and the performances that made us fall in love with the discipline in the first place. We'll revisit old competitions, legendary programs, classic videos, and those wonderfully grainy clips that remind us just how far the sport has come.

But we're also going to keep our eyes firmly on what comes next.

The Twizzle will follow the new generation of ice dancers, the teams on the rise, the competitions of the coming season and the skaters who may become the names we are talking about for years to come. There will be competition coverage, profiles, observations, nostalgia and plenty of appreciation for the artistry that makes ice dance so special.

Because that's what I love about ice dance. It has a history worth celebrating, but it is never standing still.

I've been away from covering the sport for a while. Now I'm coming back to it because the love is still there, maybe brighter than ever. The Twizzle is my way of putting that love back on the ice.

Welcome. Let's dance.

The Magic of Ice Dance: Where Skating Becomes a Conversation

There is something almost impossible to describe about ice dance.

It isn’t just skating. It isn’t just choreography. It isn’t simply two people moving across a frozen surface. At its best, ice dance feels like a conversation, a story told without words, where every edge, every turn, every glance, and every carefully timed movement matters.

Unlike pairs skating, where huge throws and gravity-defying lifts often steal the spotlight, ice dance lives in the details. The magic is found in the connection between two skaters as they glide inches apart, matching each other’s movements so perfectly that it feels less like two people skating and more like one person with four blades. That connection is what makes ice dance so fascinating.

A great ice dance team doesn’t just perform music; they interpret it. They find the emotion hidden inside a song and bring it to life. A haunting piece becomes a dramatic story. A playful rhythm becomes a celebration. A powerful ballad becomes a journey of heartbreak, hope, or triumph. The best programs stay with you because they make you feel something.

Anyone who has watched legendary teams knows that ice dance has always been about chemistry. From the elegance and precision of Olympic champions to the modern teams pushing the boundaries of athleticism and creativity, the sport continues to evolve while holding onto its roots: trust, timing, and artistry.

Because make no mistake, ice dance is incredibly difficult.

Those deep edges that look effortless require incredible strength and control. The close holds demand absolute trust. A tiny mistake in timing can change an entire sequence. Skaters spend years perfecting movements that most fans only see for a few seconds.

Music is the heartbeat of ice dance. The right song paired with the right team can transform a four-minute program into something unforgettable. The blade becomes a brush, the ice becomes a canvas, and the skaters become storytellers.

Perhaps that is why ice dance has always attracted fans who appreciate the artistic side of skating. It reminds us that sports can be more than competition. They can be emotional experiences. They can create memories that last decades.

For many fans, a favorite program is tied to a specific moment in life where they were when they saw it, how it made them feel, and why that performance still gives them chills years later.

That is the beauty of ice dance. The scores may disappear. The placements may become history. But the feeling remains. A perfect edge. A breathtaking lift. A moment of connection between two skaters as they fly across the ice.