Evan Bates: A Life of a Long Legacy Skating Toward Milano Cortina 2026

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Feb. 23, 1989), Evan Bates stepped on the ice as a child and after a successful junior career, he formed his defining partnership with Madison Chock in 2011. Together, they grew into the United States’ standard-bearers in ice dance.

Bates is already a four-time Olympian (2010, 2014, 2018, 2022). With Chock, he won Olympic team-event gold in 2022, a long-sought milestone for U.S. ice dance. If selected for 2026, Bates would be aiming at a fifth Olympics, an unprecedented mark for a U.S. ice dancer. Their late-prime surge is the stuff of legend: three straight World titles (2023, 2024, 2025) the first U.S. ice dance team to do so since Davis/White era dominance. Off the ice, Chock and Bates married in Hawaii in 2024, then returned to competition and kept winning. 

The 2025–26 season opened with Chock/Bates winning Cup of China, part of a run that has seen them take six of their last seven Grand Prix starts. Their résumé entering winter includes U.S. titles (2022–25), back-to-back Grand Prix Final crowns (2023–24, 2024–25), and an unmatched consistency in the technical levels that win big events.

Bates’ edge quality, partnering security, and pattern discipline let Chock’s choreography breathe: clean twizzles, unhurried holds in lift entries, and a knack for late-program precision that keeps levels intact when fatigue creeps in. That steadiness is why their programs read bigger in arenas and why judging panels tend to reward them in the back half of events.