For most athletes and coaches, Milano Cortina 2026 felt like the closing chapter: the end of a season and a four-year Winter Olympic cycle.

But for figure skating choreographer Benoît Richaud, it was only the preface.

“I feel it’s the beginning. This season, it made something deep inside me. And I think it’s the Olympic experience,” Richaud told Olympics.com. “I feel like I opened a door, and right in front of me, I have the whole world present, and I can go everywhere I want. That’s the feeling I have, something free, big, wild, with infinity and opportunity.”

Named the year’s “Best Choreographer” at the 2026 ISU Figure Skating Awards in March, Richaud has created programs for top skaters for more than a decade.

A handful of these were featured at the PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. But Milano Cortina 2026 was his first Olympics on site. Richaud was determined to soak up the experience, but what happened when he arrived at the Milano Ice Skating Arena was beyond all his expectations.

The 38-year-old Frenchman went viral from the first medal event, as he hopped in and out of the kiss-and-cry area with the Canada and Georgia teams while wearing their respective team jackets.

These jacket swaps became even more frequent when the individual competitions got underway.

Dubbed “the busiest man at the Olympic Games”, Richaud coached 16 skaters representing 13 nationalities and choreographed 27 programs across all four disciplines. Black, white, burgundy, teal, and three shades of blue – Richaud sported an array of national uniforms at Milano Cortina 2026 and sparked a plethora of memes along the way.

But it was about more than clicks, likes, and re-posts for the former ice dancer. Richaud also used the extra attention to share his bigger vision for figure skating.

Speaking to Olympics.com at the start of the season as part of the “Ink on Blades” documentary series, Richaud said he wanted to start a “revolution in figure skating”. As the curtain fell on the season’s last competition – the 2026 ISU World Figure Skating Championships – Richaud said he has moved one step closer to achieving that dream.

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“I feel the beginning of the revolution. I feel like there is a new way,” Benoît Richaud to Olympics.com.

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“The most important part is to inspire people, giving light, giving the feeling to others and sharing emotion,” he continued. “Especially now that we’re going to the AI world, we propose something more than sports, and that’s what’s going to connect people to us. I feel the more we’re going to move forward, the more people will not just be interested in results. They will be interested in a performance, an emotion, a direction, a story, and skating gives all of that. Not every sport has this capacity.”