The Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté has been spared a last-minute scramble to redesign his Olympic short program after overcoming a copyright dispute that had threatened to block him from using music from the Minions franchise at the Milano Cortina Winter Games.
The six-time Spanish national champion, who is set to make his Olympic debut in the men’s singles event, said he learned late last week that the routine he has performed throughout the 2025-26 season would not be cleared for Olympic use. Guarino Sabaté said he had submitted the music through the International Skating Union’s recommended rights-clearance process months ago and had competed with the program without issue during the season, including at last month’s European championships in Sheffield.
However, on Tuesday the 26-year-old thanked his fans after Universal gave him permission to use the Minions soundtrack.
“Huge THANK YOU to everyone who reposted, shared and supported. Because of you Universal Studios reconsidered and officially granted the rights for this one special occasion,” Guarino Sabaté wrote on Instagram. “There are still a couple things to be tied up with the other 2 musics of the programme but we are so close to accomplishing it! And it’s all thanks to you!! I’m so happy to see that the minions hitting Olympic ice is becoming real again!! I’ll keep you posted.”
It initially appeared that Guarino Sabaté would be forced to adapt or replace choreography he had refined for months, a daunting task in a sport where musical timing and muscle memory are inseparable.
The routine, which is built around music from the popular animated film franchise, has become a signature for the Barcelona native. He regularly performed wearing a yellow shirt and blue overalls reminiscent of the Minions characters, leaning into a playful, crowd-friendly style he said was designed to show that men’s figure skating can balance technical difficulty with humor and personality.
Music licensing in figure skating has grown increasingly labyrinthine in recent years, particularly as the sport has shifted toward contemporary popular music.
At last year’s world championships in Boston, the ISU director-general, Colin Smith, described the situation to the Guardian as a structural problem in the music business rather than something skating can easily solve on its own.
“It’s a complex issue, frankly, because the music industry has no common clearance platform,” Smith said. “There are multiple buckets of rights, and within those buckets the clearance process isn’t done on a single platform. Tracking tools have improved, but the facilitated process just isn’t there.”
Smith, who previously oversaw Fifa World Cup tournament operations as chief tournaments and events officer and chief operating officer from 2015 to 2023, said he had held direct discussions with major rights-holders about building something more workable, arguing that the sport’s global profile should make cooperation attractive.
“I’ve had direct conversations with one of the big publishing and music companies, and they fully agree it’s a strange situation that there isn’t a facilitated process – and they’re determined to help us find one,” he said. “It’s a topic we’re addressing, and we’re trying to find a rational solution.”
The controversy also fits into a broader pattern across the sport, where even elite Olympic athletes have found their music choices subject to complications.
The Canadian ice dancers Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac learned late last year that two Prince songs planned for their 1990s-themed rhythm dance could not be cleared for Olympic use, despite being approved for use during the rest of the season.
High-profile disputes have surfaced even before that. At the Beijing Olympics in 2022, the American pairs champions Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier were hit with a copyright lawsuit tied to their use of a cover version of House of the Rising Sun. The case was later settled privately for an undisclosed sum understood by the Guardian to be around $1.4m (£1.02m), but the episode highlighted the legal and financial risks tied to music selection at the sport’s highest level. Knierim later described the dispute as casting a “bittersweet” shadow over the performance.
The case also exposed how little many athletes understood about music licensing requirements. For decades, skaters largely relied on federations and event organizers to manage music use, but the lawsuit underscored how individual athletes could still be drawn into copyright disputes. Rights complications have also affected how artistic sports are broadcast and archived, with some competitions unavailable on replay platforms because music licenses do not extend to long-term streaming.
Even outside Olympic seasons, clearance costs can derail programs. The Canadian pairs skaters Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps said they abandoned plans to use a cover of a Phil Collins track after being quoted a licensing fee in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Smith said skating is not alone in facing those pressures, and suggested a broader, cross-sport approach may be necessary, involving Olympic organizers and other music-driven judged disciplines.
“Absolutely, it’s not just figure skating,” he said when asked whether the ISU could coordinate with sports such as gymnastics, artistic swimming and others that face similar issues. “We are one of the largest in terms of the Winter Olympics, and we are working with the IOC as well, together with the music industry, to find a solution.”
Smith added that the ISU was pursuing what he called a “multi-pronged approach”, including work with an existing platform that handles rights issues across other sports.
“We’re really trying to find a rational, practical solution,” he said.
Guarino Sabaté will compete in the men’s singles event, which is scheduled to begin on 10 February at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
