The 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy have officially come to a close. At the end of the competition, the Kazakh team won one gold medal and placed 19th in the overall medal standings. This is the country’s best result since 1994, when the team finished 12th at the Lillehammer Olympics, with skier Vladimir Smirnov winning gold.
This time, Kazakhstan’s only medal was secured by figure skater Mikhail Shaidorov, who became the first Olympic champion in the history of Kazakh figure skating. It is not the country’s first Olympic medal in the sport, however: in 2014 figure skater Denis Ten won bronze.
On February 14, Shaydorov paid tribute to Denis Ten, Kazakhstan’s bronze medalist at the 2014 Olympics.
“I think Denis Ten influenced not only me but also figure skating in Kazakhstan as a whole. He opened the door for many skaters, including me. And that is incredibly important. I hope that the medal I won today will open new doors for the younger generation, the children of Kazakhstan, who will know that there are no limits,” he said.
Denis Ten, who tragically died at the hands of petty thieves in the center of Almaty, did much to popularize figure skating in Kazakhstan. He dreamed of opening his own school and founding an ice show for this purpose.
Shaidorov is one of dozens of boys and girls inspired by the achievements of the Almaty native, who learned to skate at the Ramstor shopping center. The future champion took his first steps on the same rink. As residents often say, Almaty is a big village where everyone knows one another.
In fact, there is limited accessible ice in Almaty, which is why Shaidorov was forced to train in the Russian city of Sochi, as Denis Ten had previously trained in Moscow.
One of the defining stories behind the young skater’s journey is connected to his training. His father, Stanislav Shaidorov, a former professional figure skater and multiple national champion, helped him pursue his ambitions, including selling a car to invest in his son’s training.
Stanislav is acquainted with Russian coach and Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov. In 2017, Urmanov held training camps in Yoshkar-Ola, Russia, where young Mikhail Shaidorov performed his first double axel.
“Six months later, we returned to Urmanov. He assessed Misha’s progress. Over the course of a year, we learned all the triple jumps, but we had to constantly change rinks. We called every day to arrange a time, which was not always convenient for us. Finally, in the fall of 2018, we were faced with a choice: continue renting ice in Almaty at our own expense or move to Russia to train properly. I called Alexei Evgenievich. He said, ‘Okay, come on over.’ That same day, I sold my car, and the next day we bought tickets and flew to Sochi, where Urmanov works,” recalled Stanislav Shaidorov.
Mikhail, who was 14 at the time, later said in an interview that he had asked his father to leave Almaty, where he felt his development as an athlete was stalling due to the lack of available ice.
“And my dad literally sold the car in a day or two, and with that money we went to Sochi so that I could train. For four or five years, I trained almost exclusively in Sochi. It was very difficult for me. Figure skaters don’t really have an off-season. Even during that period, you’re still training. You have two weeks a year when you can go somewhere. But I was usually sick during those two weeks, and I came home to Almaty a couple of times to be with my family. But most of the time I was in Sochi,” said the Olympic champion.
Denis Ten @olympic.kz
In the summer of 2018, Denis Ten died after confronting thieves who had broken the side mirror on a car he had borrowed from his father. He was stabbed during the incident and later died from his injuries.
A monument to Denis Ten soon appeared at the site of his death, a fragile bronze figure at whose feet residents of Almaty continue to lay flowers. On the day Mikhail Shaidorov brought Olympic gold to Kazakhstan, city residents once again placed bouquets at Ten’s monument, expressing gratitude for his contribution to the development of the sport.
Following Shaidorov’s victory, sports officials recalled that the Olympic champion had trained for a long time without pay, and had even been quietly removed from the national team. In response to public criticism, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports published details of his salary as well as the total amount, $527,000, reportedly spent on his training.
In an interview, Mikhail admitted that he “was upset that confidential information about my salary was made public.”
“I think this is not very respectful towards me as an athlete and a person. I don’t understand why they needed to make such a fuss about it, because I was just doing my job, training, competing, and working toward results without rest,” he said, adding that the situation created the impression that the ministry had issued him a check specifically for the gold medal.
Although the Kazakh figure skater’s path to Olympic gold was thorny and marked by personal and national loss, Kazakhstan as a whole felt the void left by Denis Ten’s sudden death, particularly those who admired his talent, new challenges accompany victory. Congratulating Shaidorov on behalf of the National Olympic Committee of Kazakhstan, renowned boxer Gennady Golovkin wished him not only continued success but also the ability to remain grounded.
