Olympic ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates received plenty of love following their show-stopping routines at the 2026 Winter Olympics — including from rapper Snoop Dogg.
“We did meet Snoop,” Bates, 37, exclusively told Us Weekly on Wednesday, March 11. “We met a lot of fun people, but Snoop has been such a great addition to Team USA as ‘Coach Snoop.’”
Snoop, 54, worked as an Olympics correspondent for NBC’s coverage of the competition. Team USA also named the “Drop It Like It’s Hot” rapper as an honorary coach for the Milan Cortina Games.
Bates and his wife, 33-year-old Chock, led the United States’ figure skating squad to a gold-medal victory in the team event last month. Bates and Chock also took home the silver medal in the individual ice dance event behind French skaters Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry. (Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, meanwhile, clinched the bronze.)
“We woke up a day after competing, and we had this really encouraging, beautiful message written by Snoop,” Bates recalled. “It’s not every day you wake up to a text from Snoop. I was like, ‘This is crazy.’”
According to Chock, Snoop sent the ice dancing duo “some real wise words” in his heartfelt message.
“He was just saying that a silver medal is something to be really proud of, and [to] keep our chins high and be really proud of the work that we’ve done representing Team USA,” Bates said. “It meant a lot to us to hear from them and so many other people back home who have reached out and supported us. It means a lot, definitely.”
Fans were initially shocked that Bates and Chock, who got married in 2024, ended the competition in second place after overwhelmingly clean and artistic performances.
“We’re so proud of how we skated and what we accomplished in Milan over those six days, and that is the feeling that will never change,” Chock told Us. “I’m so happy that we were able to accomplish that goal because we went into the Olympics with the goal of skating clean and powerful and expressive performances, and we did that. So, we achieved our goal, and we had our gold medal performances, and we’re just really happy to have had that Olympic experience.”
Bates and Chock earned their first individual Olympic medals at the 2026 Games, though their placement sparked conversations about potential scoring discrepancies. (Cizeron, 31, and Fournier Beaudry, 33, won gold after a narrow margin.)
“I think across our sport, there’s certainly room for growth as we enter this age of technology and all of the tools that are available,” Bates acknowledged on Wednesday. “I think our sport could definitely implement some of those things and make it more objective and make our sport grow in that aspect. Of course, there’s always that artistic side to figure skating, which is what makes it so beautiful. Art is always going to be subjective, and we understand that.”
The Olympics mark the end of Chock and Bates’ competitive season after they pulled out of the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague later this month.
“It was not an easy decision. I think anytime there’s a world championship, it means a lot,” Bates said of the pair withdrawing from Worlds. “But I think for us, after our Olympic experience, we felt so content with the feeling that we had when we stepped off the ice in Milan, and we had worked so hard to create those moments, and I think for this season in particular, that’s how we wanted to leave the season with that feeling of accomplishment and contentment.”
He continued, “We’ll see what the future holds. We have some exciting shows coming up with ‘Stars on Ice.’ We’ll be touring around, and we’re not going to stop skating, but for right now, we’re taking a breath.”
