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These 4 Documentaries Are a Reminder of Just How Exciting the Winter Olympics Can Get

There's so much drama on and off the ice.

Headshot of Liz Kocan
Headshot of Liz Kocan
Liz Kocan
Liz Kocan has spent the last 20 years covering TV, entertainment and working behind the scenes in digital production. While at VH1.com, she won a Webby Award and was nominated for a Shorty Award as a producer. She has also contributed her writing to USA Today, Decider, Vulture, and many other publications, and has seen every episode of 30 Rock more times than her mind grapes can remember.
Liz Kocan
3 min read
Skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding back to back on ice
Peacock

Now that the 2026 Winter Games in Milan are underway, we truly can't get enough of all the action on the ice and snow. While sports like curling might barely register on our radar most of the time, there's something about the Olympic broadcast that suddenly makes us care deeply about that slow-moving stone gliding across the ice.

If you're the type to get obsessed over the Olympics, there are a few shows and specials that you may want to watch to get even more invested. A new Netflix documentary series, Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing, has arrived, introducing viewers to the couples competing in ice dance at the 2026 Winter Games, including recent silver medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates. And the streamer also carries a documentary about the US men's hockey team that beat the odds -- and the Russians -- on the ice in 1980.

If you love some drama in the juiciest sense of the word, there are also a couple of great shows on Peacock that dig into two of ice skating's biggest scandals: Meddling and Nancy & Tonya. Both are great examples of just how dramatic things can get off the ice. (And if you need more drama in and out of the rink, there's always Heated Rivalry on HBO Max.)

Netflix

Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing is a new three-part Netflix series that dropped right before the Olympics. The series follows three of the best ice dance pairs in the world as they prepared for the 2026 Winter Games, including Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry of Team France, Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, and Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier (all three pairs have earned medals at the Olympics, by the way). This topical series delivers tons of glitz and drama, a perfect complement to the skating competition this year.

Netflix

The "Miracle on Ice," as it's now known, was one of the biggest and most electrifying Olympic moments for a certain generation. In 1980, the US men's ice hockey team entered the Winter Games as underdogs. They were expected to lose to the Soviet Union. However, they defied all odds and brought home not just a victory, but the gold medal. The team's story has been told a few different times, but this Netflix special features new interviews and never-before-seen footage to help relive the moment that made people believe in miracles.

Peacock

Meddling is a story of international intrigue set against the backdrop of the 2002 Winter Olympics. In this four-part series produced by Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski, you'll learn about the skating scandal that led to a major reform in how skating routines are judged. The show introduces viewers to Russian skating pair Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, and Canadian skating partners Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.

Both teams were expected to do well at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. But when Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze were awarded the gold medal after performing a flawed routine (and Sale and Pelletier earned a silver after what many considered a flawless performance), a French judge came under fire for allegedly being pressured to swing her scoring in favor of the Russians. It was such a controversy that Sale and Pelletier were ultimately named co-gold medalists.

In the series, the judge at the center of the scandal speaks out, along with the skater involved. And if you can't get enough of the 2002 figure skating scandal, it's also the subject of an episode of the Netflix series Bad Sport.

Peacock

There may be no Olympic scandal quite as infamous as the attack on Nancy Kerrigan in the lead-up to the 1994 Winter Games. Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were considered America's best women skaters, but Kerrigan was attacked ahead of the Olympic event, and it was ultimately revealed that Harding's estranged husband hired someone to do it. 

The situation became a media spectacle, and Harding's reputation suffered. She was eventually banned from competitive skating. This special rehashes all the details of what was one of the biggest Olympic controversies of all time.