Canadian Madeline Schizas won’t get to dance her free skate routine.
After a disappointing finish to her short program, Schizas failed to qualify for the free skate because she didn’t finish among the top 24 skaters in the women’s singles event. She finished 25th with a score of 55.38.
Schizas, from Oakville, Ont., had a few stumbles in her skate and popped her triple lutz jump, dropping it to a double rotation when she needed a triple. The mistake impacted her score and dropped her in the standings as a result.
“This doesn’t reflect how I’ve been practising or how I wanted to skate, but I guess that’s sometimes part of sport. We don’t get the outcome we wanted,” Schizas told CBC Olympics after her skate. “I’m really disappointed and I’m obviously not happy, but I’m just going to have to learn from this.”
Schizas has been at Milano Cortina 2026 since the Opening Ceremony and already competed for Canada in the figure skating team event. She is a two-time Olympian who had a breakout performance in Beijing 2022 when she performed an impeccable skate in the team event to boost Canada to fourth. In the 2022 singles event she finished 18th.
“I’ve enjoyed my time here and like to think I’ve represented Canada proudly and well,” she said of her experience.
“It’s not always going to be perfect. I’m living a huge failure in front of hundreds, thousands of people, but I’m going to come back stronger.”