Madison Chock and Evan Bates have ground to make up in their pursuit of ice dance gold at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. The three-time world champions made the slightest mistake on their pattern step as the final couple on the ice Monday night, and it left them trailing Laurence Fournier B eaudry and Guillaume Cizeron by the slimmest of margins going into the free dance. The new French couple scored 90.18 points early in the night, hours before Chock and Bates performed at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. The score held up the rest of the way with the Americans, fresh off helping to defend their team gold medal 24 hours earlier, earning 89.72 points for their Lenny Kravitz-inspired rock-and-roll rhythm dance. Chock and Bates had scored a world-leading 91.06 points for the same program during the team competition. “The game is always on. You should know us by now,” Chock said afterward, flashing a grin. “We’re not changing anything. We’ve got this locked in, locked in where we know ourselves, know our routine. And yeah, we’ve got this.” Chock and Bates, whose free dance is arguably the best in the world, will next skate Wednesday in that portion of the competition. For the untrained eye, or for anyone who doesn’t follow the sport regularly, what the pairs in the ice dance event do may be very similar to the pairs figure skating competition. However, there are some distinct differences. What separates ice dancing from pairs figure skating? What’s in a name? The most obvious difference is that the events are called different things, which do contain nuggets of information detailing what separates the two disciplines. In pairs skating, the competition has two portions: the short program and the free program. In ice dancing, the portions are rhythm dance and free dance. Beyond naming conventions, the most glaring difference between the two is the jumping. In pairs skating, lifts and jumps are common. But in ice dancing, there are rarely any jumps in a performance, aside from single or assisted ones. Also prohibited are throw jumps, twist lifts, overhead lifts and other moves that border on acrobatics, according to the Olympics website. Another area of difference: the distance between the partners. In pairs skating, the duo can perform any number of different moves at a distance. Ice dancing rules require the skaters be no more than two arms’ lengths apart and should not be apart for long. What are the moves in ice dancing? Instead of jumps and throws, ice dancing focuses on what is called a twizzle: “a travelling turn on one foot with one or more rotations which is quickly rotated with a continuous action,” according to the Olympics website. There are other elements as well, such as pattern dance, lift, spin, step sequence and choreography. Pair skating will feature the male skater lifting the female partner over his head and tossing her into the air. The female partner will do three complete rotations before being caught at the waist. There are also pair lifts, throw jumps, jumps, death spirals and spins. ...read more read less