Ranking the Figure Skating Costumes from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

by Elana Fishman


Last night at the Olympics, 17-year-old Adelina Sotnikova took home the gold medal in women's figure skating in a stunning upset over 2010 champion Yuna Kim of South Korea. Over the course of the competition, Sotnikova racked up 224.59 points against Kim's 219.11-though many immediately contested those final scores. In fact, many viewers had placed their bets on Sotnikova's 15-year-old teammate Yulia Lipnitskaya early in the game, after a video of her performing in the team skating competition went viral thanks to her physics-defying, dizzying spins. But after several falls knocked down her overall ranking, Lipnitskaya-nicknamed Russia's "tiny genius"-finished in fifth place.

Meanwhile, Italian Carolina Kostner took the bronze medal, American competitor Gracie Gold took fourth place, Japanese skater Mao Asada finished in sixth and Gold's fellow U.S. teammate Ashley Wagner wound up in seventh.

Of course, while Olympic skaters are judged on a mix of their programs' technical difficulty, grace, choreography and artistic interpretation, we're usually assessing an additional aspect of their performance: their outfits. Figure skating costumes are famously sparkly and often over-the-top-but when a competitor's ensemble hits just the right balance of elegance and embellishment, well, her whole routine just looks that much better. To wit, I've ranked each of the looks worn by the top female skaters at the Sochi Olympics over the past several days-click through above for the scores!

More from Lucky:
8 Outfits Men Love on Women
How to Wear a Baseball Cap and Look Cool
Fancy Beauty Buys for Under $20
The Best Black Shoes in every height