The NBC Saturday primetime broadcast used the figure skating exhibition gala as a way to provide a curtain call for their appointed Olympic protagonists. Of the five segments they aired from the event, four of them put Americans in the spotlight. Amber Glenn gave a fierce performance that further emphasized her comeback from a disappointing short program. Alysa Liu skated a victory lap after her instantly iconic gold medal-winning free skate. And Ilia Malinin, who will be remembered for his poise in the aftermath of his shocking eighth-place finish, gave an earnest on-ice interpretation of how it feels to have all that pressure and attention so tightly focused on your ability to land a once-impossible jump.
This abridged version of the gala was a fine send-off to the figure skaters (I could have done without Chock and Bates's whole bedsheet act, to be honest), but NBC's primetime edit drastically undersold just how Eurovision the whole thing was in full: campy and silly and full of moments that make you ask "Why that?" The gala serves as a window into the very specific interests of some of the great skaters in the world, and it declares—triumphantly, I would say—that taste and athletic prowess have nothing to do with one another. The silver-winning pair from Georgia put on a tribute to Mortal Kombat, complete with the voice that shouts "Mortal Kombat!" Niina Petrõkina pantomined shooting Malinin during a theater-kid's dream of a skate to "Cell Block Tango." Italy's Sara Conti and Niccolò Macii performed to, in order, "Macarena," "YMCA," and "Cotton Eye Joe." And the gold-medal winning Mikhail Shaidorov topped them all by spinning around in a panda costume, making his own farewell to Milan an homage to the Jack Black animated franchise Kung Fu Panda.
Shaidorov's heroic free skate felt a bit undersold, in my opinion, by media coverage that made the story about Malinin's falls. I understand that people saw it as kind of a flukey result, because the three guys with the inside track on medals all messed up their routines after it happened. But the 21-year-old representing Kazakhstan, who seemed significantly younger when he was smiling with his braces in and holding a little stuffed panda while watching the favorites, earned that gold with the free skate of his life. He looked smooth, assured, and breathtakingly athletic as he performed to a song from his home country and a song from The Fifth Element. Even if it wasn't the absolute greatest routine of the last four years, Shaidorov deserved all the credit for being the most flawless skater on the sport's most important night.
And then he celebrated his new golden status by dressing up as a panda and getting a hug from Jackie Chan. Skating around with a bunch of extra bulk from the costume, Shaidorov's exhibition program displayed all the gleeful goofiness of a kid playing dress-up in his basement. One-half of the Mortal Kombat duo was there too, as was Nika Egadze dressed as Deadpool, which made the routine feel like a cursed animated Youtube video. But the silliness was above all else endearing, as Shaidorov told the story of a panda who tries to learn kung fu, gets knocked down, and then finds the strength to do a full-scale jump set to the Tenacious D cover of "…Baby One More Time."
Shaidorov had done this routine before, as a drastically less-famous skater, and it's very charming that he stayed true to himself in the aftermath of a new professional peak straight out of his wildest fantasies. Here was a tremendous underdog who had kept his cool when the giants of his sport did not, and with all these new eyes on him he leaned all the way into an adorable idea that represented who he was during a more anonymous era.
“I wanted to show some parallels with Kung Fu Panda because, like the character, I can be clumsy too," Shaidorov said last year. "The message of the routine is that even if you’re clumsy, you can still become a Dragon Warrior. Nothing is impossible.”
It's easy to forget, amid all the displays of strength and proficiency, that these skaters aren't that far removed from their childhood. Everyone who wins gold in any discipline is fulfilling a long-held dream, but Shaidorov, in the unique context provided by the exhibition gala, was able to add a more whimsical wish on top: I'm going to win at the Olympics, and then I'm going to show everyone my panda costume. It's something you can imagine him saying as a small boy leaving the movie theater, and at the end of an unforgettable two weeks, he made it reality.
