Vadym Kolesnik, who skates in Novi, sworn in as U.S. citizen in Troy on Aug. 18, 2025.
Provided by Vadym Kolesnik
A long line of children stretched across the room and down the hallway at the Novi Ice Arena, as they waited for the two new Winter Olympians.
“It’s crazy to see them,” Emilea Zingas said, glancing at the kids. “I feel like that was me like five minutes ago.”
“I think I’m still a kid,” Vadym Kolesnik, 24, said.
“Yeah, me too,” said Zingas, a 23-year-old from Grosse Pointe Farms.
It was Monday, Jan. 26, and the children were waiting to get an autograph from Zingas and Kolesnik, who will compete for the United States in ice dance at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano and Cortina, Italy.
“I’m so excited — I can’t even really put into words or describe the emotions that I’m feeling,” Zingas said.
She had a look that was somewhere between twinkling-eyed happiness and pure disbelief.
How these two underdogs became Olympians is absolutely wild. It’s a story of an unlikely pairing, set against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, and a brave gamble of training together for years as they overcame pain and surgeries and the stress of immigration issues just to get to this moment.
Oh, one more thing: They had to skate perfectly for an entire season or they wouldn’t get in.
So, yeah, they’ve been through some stuff.
Match made on the ice
It all started with Igor Shpilband, a legendary ice dance coach. He was trying to find a partner for Kolesnik, who had won the 2020 World Juniors with Avonley Nguyen. But Kolesnik and Nguyen had ended their partnership.
“I knew everybody in the U.S. in ice dancing, and I didn’t feel like anyone can skate at his ability,” Shpilband said.
Shpilband was at a competition in Germany and decided to watch singles practice. “I’m watching practice and then watching another,” he said.
One skater stood out.
“She could really move,” he said. “Really skate. She was having so much fun, and I go, ‘Wow, maybe she should be in ice dance.’ ”
It was Zingas. So, Shpilband approached her with an idea: You wanna try ice dance?
“I was shocked,” Zingas said. “Originally, I was like, ‘No way,’ because I’d never done any type of partner skating.”
Zingas had spent more than a decade training as a singles skater at the St. Clair Shores Figure Skating Club. Zingas was trying to make the 2022 Olympics on her own representing Cyprus, where her father was born. But she failed to earn a spot.
“A devastating thing for me,” she said, “and it really left me, like, wondering what my next step was in skating.”
After spending some time with Shpilband, Zingas decided to try to skate with Kolesnik.
“I loved it, like, from the first moment,” she said.
As Shpilband started to work with them, he realized Zingas was perfect in every way.
“She’s the perfect size for him,” Shpilband said. “Her skating skill was always very, very good. She was taught really, really well by her previous coaches. And she was brave enough to do it and to trust me, and I’m happy that she did.”
Brave, indeed.
The war that changed everything
During their first season together, Zingas and Kolesnik planned to travel to Ukraine, where Kolesnik was born. But in February 2022, a week before they were going to leave, Russia invaded Ukraine and they canceled their trip.
Kolesnik was born in Kharkiv, a city that has been bombed repeatedly by the Russians.
“My brother’s house, he got bombed,” Kolesnik said. “They evacuated my little nephew and his mother. My family’s business was ruined. My grandma’s house got bombed.”
His brother, Igor, is in the Ukrainian army. And his father, also named Igor, stayed in Kharkiv to care for Vadym’s grandmother. Some of his friends died and his relatives lived in areas that were occupied by Russia. “I didn’t sleep well at all,” Kolesnik said. “The horrific stuff that was happening there, I don’t think they will ever tell me.”
Zingas felt helpless, trying to give him emotional support.
“It’s been difficult,” Zingas said. “All I could do was comfort him and pray and say, ‘They’re going to be OK. Everything’s going to be OK.’
“But I didn’t know if everything was going to be OK.”
Overcoming physical challenges
As Zingas and Kolesnik continued to improve as a team, both of them faced medical issues.
“I’ve been struggling with the ovarian issues for many years now,” Zingas said. “I actually had a 10-centimeter tumor removed in 2023 and since then, I’ve just been battling issues with it. But luckily, with the team of doctors, I was able to get a lot better.”
After struggling with pain, Kolesnik had surgery last March for a sports hernia.
“We were dealing with some physical limitations,” Zingas said. “Last year, he had an injury. He had that repaired in the spring, and so that was a big weight off our shoulders. Now he’s in a lot less physical pain.”
Now, they both feel great.
“I think this is the healthiest I’ve been in many years,” Zingas said.
Who was the president …
Then, there was another hurdle. A huge one.
To compete for Team USA, Kolesnik had to become a citizen. So, Kolesnik and Zinga headed to the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services office in Troy on Aug.10.
“He was really nervous,” Zingas said.
First, Kolesnik had to pass an oral civics test. Out of 100 possible questions, Kolesnik would be asked 10 of them, picked at random. On the way to the facility, his mind went blank and couldn’t find answers to questions had had been answering with ease. Things like: Who was the United States president during World War I? How about World War II?
“We were in the car on the way,” Zingas said. “He was driving, and I’m quizzing him, and he’s getting some of the answers wrong, and he had been getting 100% right for weeks leading up to this.”
He hadn’t slept and the pressure was building. So, Zingas tried to reassure him. “It’s going to be OK,” she said, trying to hide her true feelings.
But the truth is, Zingas was incredibly nervous. Everything was riding on this moment for them. They had been training together in Novi for 3½ years, hoping to make the U.S. Olympic team. But it was all contingent on this moment: On Kolesnik becoming a U.S. citizen.
He went into a room for the oral quiz and started getting everything right.
“In my head, I’m like, ‘wait, I have one more question,’ ” Kolesnik said. “ ‘If I answer this, I’m done. This is all.’ ”
The final question: “Who was the president during World War II?”
“Roosevelt,” Kolesnik said confidently.
He had passed, then he passed the interview.
But he wanted to play a trick on Zingas.
“I’m waiting in the waiting room,” Zingas said. “I’m so nervous. I’m like, praying to God that he passed this test, that the interview went well.”
Kolesnik walked out of the room looking dejected. “My heart dropped,” Zingas said. “I’m thinking, this cannot be happening. It felt like my world was over.”
Then, all of a sudden, Kolesnik screamed: “I passed! USA, baby!”
“He’s running around,” she said. “In that moment, we were so happy.”
“It means the world to me,” Kolesnik said.
Finding perfection
As the season began, they took second at Cup of China and third in Helsinki.
“Right now, our score is No. 2 in the nation,” Zingas said in November. “And we’re ninth in the world.”
That was significant because the United States was expected to send three teams to the Olympics.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates, a pair with Michigan ties favored to win gold, took one spot.
Then, it was a toss-up for the other two spots.
Zingas and Kolenski had a chance. But so did two other teams. So, going into the U.S. Championships in St. Louis in early January, nothing was set.
“We knew that going in we had to skate perfect in every competition,” Zingas said.
The U.S. Championships played out perfectly for them. Chock and Bates won their seventh title, breaking the record held by Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
Zingas and Kolesnik finished second — the best finish of their career — securing their first berth in the Olympics.
“We worked so hard this season,” Kolesnik said. “We couldn’t afford any mistakes. We were the underdogs the whole season. So for us, it was all or nothing, and we made it possible.”
“It feels unreal,” Zingas said. “It feels amazing.”
But it’s not unexpected. Not for Shpilband.
“There are a lot of things that are very, very special about them,” Shpilband said. “I think they are both extremely driven and extremely talented. This is a quality that is very hard to find. I’ve been teaching for 35 years, I see a lot of talented skaters, but to see talented skaters, with that much drive and dedication, you’re not seeing it that often. They have unbelievable ability. They’re very coordinated. They are very athletic, and they do not stop pushing themselves. This is a recipe for success for a long time.”
In some ways, this is just the start for them. Considering how young they are, they could be a force for years to come, if they stay healthy.
“It was a dream come true,” Kolesnik said. “I was dreaming about going to Olympics, not just going, at some point, winning it, because we’re going to keep going until we win it one day.”
Zingas nodded her head.
“Yes,” she said confidently. “We will.”
And that twinkle of excitement dissolved into pure determination.
Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on X @seideljeff.
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