Where Is the Ski Ballet?
Once part of the Winter Olympics, these sports are now iced out.
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The graceful sport of ski ballet was once part of the Olympics.
The 2026 Winter Olympic Games are underway! When you think about the Winter Olympics, you may picture classic sports like ice hockey and snowboarding. But what about ski ballet? It is one of a handful of sports that were once proudly part of the Olympic experience but won’t be on display at this year’s games. Let’s take a trip down a snowy memory lane to learn about this and other curious winter sports events.
Ski Ballet
Years it was last part of the Olympics: 1988 and 1992
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Ski ballet combined skiing and dancing.
Graceful twirls and leaps weren’t always just for figure skating; ski ballet had them too. Also called “acroski,” the sport combined freestyle skiing with dancing. Athletes performed a 90-second dance routine as they skied down a mountain, using ski poles to help vault themselves into twists and flips. The judges scored each performance based on difficulty, execution, and creativity. Ski ballet appeared in two Winter Olympics as a “demonstration sport,” which is a sport that the host nation promotes with the hope it will become an Olympic sport in the future. Despite the athleticism and fun of ski ballet, it never became an official event.
Compulsory Figures
Years it was last part of the Olympics: 1924–1988
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(Right) U.S. figure skater Peggy Flemming does compulsory figures during a 1968 competition. (Left) U.S. figure skater Paul Wylie does compulsory figures during the 1988 Winter Olympics.
Figure skating is filled with gravity-defying jumps and spins that athletes must perform with grace and ease—all while on ice skates. But part of the Olympic figure skating competition used to include compulsory figures, a technical event judged not for the performance, but for the end result: geometric circles and designs carved into the ice from the athlete’s skates. Compulsory figures demonstrated a skater’s ability to make clean, round turns on skates. It also gave “figure skating” its name.
Compulsory figures used to be part of a figure skater’s overall competition score, but it was discontinued after the 1988 Olympics. The first Black athlete of any nation to medal at the Winter Olympics, Debi Thomas, was also the last compulsory figures champion.
Sled Dog Racing
Year it was last part of the Olympics: 1932
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A dogsled team competes at the International Federation of Dog Sledding Sprint and Distance European Championship 2020 in Italy.
What if the Winter Olympics featured furry athletes alongside the human ones? This happened in 1932 with sled dog racing! Still popular in cold and arctic regions, sled dog racing at the games featured teams of six sled dogs, each pulling a sled and driver, also called a musher, around a snow-covered course. The driver and dogs worked together to complete the course as fast as possible. While sled dog racing was only a one-time demonstration sport, many mushers hope sled dog racing will become part of the Winter Olympics again one day.
Would you like to see any of these events return to the Winter Olympics?
