{"id":384824,"date":"2026-04-10T10:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/384824\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:16:07","slug":"viral-sensation-benoit-richaud-on-his-olympic-whirlwind-and-crazy-choreography-plans-for-next-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/384824\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral sensation Beno\u00eet Richaud on his Olympic whirlwind and “crazy” choreography plans for next Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

But for figure skating<\/a> choreographer Beno\u00eet Richaud, it was only the preface.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it’s the beginning. This season, it made something deep inside me. And I think it’s the Olympic experience,\u201d Richaud told Olympics.com. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Named the year’s\u00a0\u201cBest Choreographer\u201d at the 2026 ISU Figure Skating Awards<\/a> in March, Richaud has created programs for top skaters for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

A handful of these were featured at the\u00a0PyeongChang 2018<\/a> and Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games<\/a>.\u00a0But Milano Cortina 2026 was his first Olympics on site.\u00a0Richaud was determined to soak up the experience, but what happened when he arrived at the Milano Ice Skating Arena was beyond all his expectations.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These jacket swaps became even more frequent when the individual competitions got underway.<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201cthe busiest man at the Olympic Games\u201d, Richaud coached 16 skaters representing 13 nationalities and choreographed 27 programs across all four disciplines. Black, white, burgundy, teal, and three shades of blue \u2013 Richaud sported an array of national uniforms at Milano Cortina 2026 and sparked a plethora of memes along the\u00a0way.<\/p>\n

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

Speaking to Olympics.com at the start of the season as part of the \u201cInk on Blades\u201d documentary series<\/a>, Richaud said he wanted to start a \u201crevolution in figure skating\u201d. As the curtain fell on the season\u2019s last competition \u2013 the 2026 ISU World Figure Skating Championships<\/a> \u2013 Richaud said he has moved one step closer to achieving that dream.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel the beginning of the revolution. I feel like there is a new way,\u201d Beno\u00eet Richaud to Olympics.com.<\/p>\n

\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important part is to inspire people, giving light, giving the feeling to others and sharing emotion,\u201d he continued. \u201cEspecially 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most athletes and coaches, Milano Cortina 2026 felt like the closing chapter: the end of a season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-384824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}