During Winter Olympic's figure skating Exhibition Gala, the silver medal winning figure skating pair from Georgia, Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava, took to the rink dressed as Mortal Kombat's Kitana and Sub-Zero ending the routine with a competition illegal 'Headbanger' lift.
The Exhibition Gala is an event that closes the figure skating at the Winter Olympics and the stakes could not be lower. It's usually used as a fun way to close out the competition, where skaters often dress up and pay homage to different parts of pop culture, and/or demonstrate their mettle by pulling off the dangerous moves that are banned in regular competition.
In this 'almost-anything-goes' format, you can see figure skating rarely done anywhere else including a pair dressed at Kitana and Sub-Zero re-enacting scenes from the game while on the ice. Near the end of the routine the couple pull off a type of rotational lift, informally known as the Headbanger, where the man spins the woman around by only holding onto one ankle, while bringing her head down scarily close to the ice.
It's banned in regular competition in order to not encourage skaters to learn and practice dangerous moves in order to win points, but with nothing on the line, the Exhibition Gala allows athletes to show off their best moves free from the constraints of these rules.
Following the Headbanger, Metelkina acts dazed like before you are offered to pull off a Fatality, but don't worry – Berulava doesn't 'Finish her.' The pair performed the routine to Techno Syndrome, a well-known version of the Mortal Kombat theme.
This isn't the first time that Metelkina and Berulava have performed as the fighting duo, as they took to the ice with the routine at the 2025 World Championships. However, as this showcase took place at the Winter Olympics, it undoubtedly has more eyes on it than ever before.
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