Shows and millions: how much did our skaters earn in the 2025/26 season

The big sports season in figure skating is officially over — the Russian Challenge show program tournament was held in Russia. His prize pool was the largest among all the competitions held from September to April, even more than at the World Championships. Yes, there are still small tournaments like the St. Petersburg Federation prizes, but by and large, winter sports are going into hibernation. Izvestia calculated the prize money of our skaters and compared them with the earnings of their foreign colleagues.

Humennik is an absolute leader

It was a very busy season. It started with the Olympic selection in Beijing, then turned into the Russian Grand Prix series, where Adelia Petrosyan fought with a quadruple toe loop, and Peter Gumennik misfired on the stage in Moscow. Then there was the national championship in St. Petersburg - not without nerves, especially when silver medalist Alisa Dvoeglazova couldn't stand it and reposted a video criticizing the refereeing.

February is the Olympics, which, even with a truncated national team, gave us the already forgotten emotions of rooting for our own people at a big tournament. As well as worries about whether Adelia needed that damn quadruple or the medal could have gone either way.

Spring is the time for the Grand Prix finals and show tournaments, in which Humennik and Boikova again proved their superiority./Kozlovsky fought for a quadruple ejection, and Kaganovskaya/Nekrasov almost caught up with Stepanova/Bukina is dancing. Women have discovered new talents and owners of ultra-c jumps, such as Kamilla Nelyubova and Maria Elisova.

The prize money during the season could be earned by skaters like:

— in the Grand Prix series, the first three places at each stage were estimated at 500 thousand, 300 thousand and 200 thousand rubles, respectively;

— in the Russian championship — 2.5 million, 1.5 million and 1 million rubles;

— in the Grand Prix finals - 1 million, 750 thousand and 500 thousand rubles;

— for the Russian jumping Championship — 1 million, 500 thousand and 250 thousand, as well as bonuses for special prizes like the most difficult element;

— Channel One Cup — 14 million or 7 million rubles per team, depending on the location (we counted the prize money for each by simply dividing the amount by the number of team members);

— The Russian Challenge show program tournament — 5 million, 2.5 million, 1 million for the final three and 1 million for each special prize.

We do not take into account the salaries of figure skaters, bonuses in the show, or payments from local governments for participating in the Olympics (for example, Gumennik was promised to pay 344 thousand rubles for sixth place in St. Petersburg).

What happened? Peter Humennik earned the most in the 2025/26 season. And not only in Russia, but also in the world. During the season, he added 11.6 million rubles to his account. More than half of this amount was made up of the "Russian Challenge": the St. Petersburg man with the luxurious Terminator suite won 7 million rubles — five for the victory and one each for the first place among men and separately in the audience vote.

The second place in our rating went to Alice Dvoeglazova — 5.6 million rubles. She successfully completed the entire season, was high at the Russian championships, took 1.5 million at the jumping championships, where she won both in the individual tournament and in the duet format with Andrey Mozalev (we divided the amount in half).

The third is Adelia Petrosyan. She earned 4.3 million during the season. Although she missed some tournaments in the second half of the season, she had enough time in the first part of the race. Moreover, she was ahead of one of the sensations of the rating — Daria Sadkova, who took 24th overall out of 26 on the Russian Challenge. For the leap forward, we should thank Pelagia - the singer awarded a special prize to the athlete, which meant + 1 million rubles (before taxes, of course) to her personal wallet.

It is worth mentioning separately about paired species. In figure skating, there has long been some discrimination against couples and dancing — their prize money is less (often exactly twice) than that of singles. On the one hand, personal sports are more popular on average, and the amount shown to the audience is the same for dancers and greenhouses as for singles — three to four minutes on ice. On the other hand, each individual athlete earns less. If only Mishina/If the Gallyams were one, then they would be second in our ranking. As it is, they complete the top ten.

Such anomalies are also interesting — for example, Victoria Sinitsina, who has already completed her career./Nikita Katsalapov has surpassed almost all competitors in his appearance with one performance this season. They earned 3.5 million rubles with an exhibition program on the Russian Challenge, and Vasilisa Kaganovskaya was the second country couple to dance./Maxim Nekrasov rode the whole season, got into medals everywhere — and was limited to 3.34 million.

Peter the Great: Humennik confirmed the status of the best figure skater in the country

The final of the Russian Women's Grand Prix was won by Dvoeglazova, and the pairs were dominated by Boikova./Kozlovsky, dancing — Stepanova/Bukin

Comparison with foreigners

Now about what's abroad. Officially, prizes are available in the Grand Prix series (the first six places, up to $18 thousand for winning each stage, in the finals they pay up to $25 thousand), at the European and four continents championships (for winning — $ 21 thousand) and the World Championships (from $8 thousand to $64 thousand for singles for places from sixth to first, respectively, and from $10 thousand to $90 thousand for paired types. The Olympic Games are a non—commercial competition, and there are no official prizes.

Who is the leader abroad? Obviously, Ilya Malinin, who won all the starts except the main one. He received $125,000 (10.4 million rubles at the current exchange rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation).

Alice Liu did not go to the World Cup — she probably earned more on contracts and without it, but in terms of prize money, the American is at the Petrosyan level — $ 56 thousand (4.5 million rubles). Kaori Sakamoto, who retired from sports, has almost twice as much — $107 thousand (8.6 million).

Other favorites include French dancers Laurence Fournier-Baudry/Guillaume Cizeron, who earned $174,000 — but for two, that is, $87,000 each (7 million each). Slightly higher due to individual performances from Yuma Kagiyama — $ 101 thousand (8.1 million).

But, for the sake of fairness, in certain cases, the transition to foreign figure skating is clearly justified, especially for couples. Anastasia Metelkina/Luka Berulava in Russia would never have earned $131 thousand for two people — that's 5.2 million rubles for a brother, that is, much more than Mishina's/Gallyamova.

Thus, the leaders of world figure skating still get an average higher than the Russians — only if you are not Peter Gumennik. But show tournaments open the way to good money for many skaters — Matvey Vetlugin or Nikita Sarnovsky would hardly have been in the top 6 at the European and world championships, but they managed to break the bank due to their special skills - artistry and staging, as in the case of Matvey at the show program tournament, or jumping, like Nikita at the corresponding championship.

Will there be enough budgets for the next season of figure skating in isolation — or maybe it won't be so isolated anymore? Perhaps this is the main issue of the off-season, and all attention is now on the ISU congress on June 10-12 in Tenerife.