Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea have endured a long, painful journey to Olympic figure skating gold

MILAN — The injuries that Danny O'Shea has endured over three decades of trying to make his Olympic dream happen are easy to see.

They are scars and bruises and bumps and lumps.

The one that his pairs partner, Ellie Kam, suffered last year is not.

Shortly after O'Shea underwent surgery to repair a broken foot, Kam sustained a severe concussion last summer when she hit her head on the ice during a fall. She was sidelined for about a month, putting preparations for the most important season of their lives — and perhaps O'Shea's last chance at the Winter Games — in a state of flux.

So when they stepped on the ice for the team event last weekend, and ultimately helped the Americans defend their gold medal, the beaming smiles that both Kam and O'Shea wore on their faces were rooted in a whole lot of pain.

“I don't really have the words because it's supposed to be just another competition,” Kam said, “but it's so much more than that.”

O'Shea and Kim, who will compete in the individual event starting Sunday night, are perhaps an unlikely pairing.

O'Shea, who turned 35 on Friday, is at a point in his life at which most skaters have retired. He played football, soccer and basketball while growing up, which is not exactly common for figure skaters, and even ran track and practiced karate.

It was always figure skating that captured his imagination, though. O'Shea remembers watching the Olympics when he was not yet 10 years old, and the dream of skating under those lights and amid that pressure took root and never let go.

“I wrote out all the years the Olympics would be. ‘Oh, it happens every four years, and in 2010, I'll be 18 or whatever. That’s the one I'm going to go to,'” O'Shea told The Associated Press. “That did not happen. But I am if nothing else pretty stubborn and determined — two sides of the same coin. I'm determined and, you know, I believed in myself.”

He kept believing even when it didn't happen for the Sochi Games in 2014, or the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, which might have been the most difficult to swallow. O'Shea and his then-partner Tarah Kayne were the first alternates, and because the U.S. only qualified one spot, they spent the month in South Korea just in case something happened to the American team.

Alexa Knierim and her husband, Chris Knierim, wound up competing as planned. O'Shea and Kayne did not.

“To be so close and not make it, it was devastating, right?” O'Shea said. “They don't usually send alternates, but with only one pair, they wanted me to stay in Asia after Four Continents and be close by. It was one of the coolest, hardest moments of my life.”

Kayne eventually left the sport amid allegations of misconduct related to their former coach, Dalilah Sappenfield, who subsequently was banned by the United States Center for SafeSport for physical and emotional abuse, among other charges.

O'Shea spent a season skating with Chelsea Liu before teaming up with Kam for the 2022-23 season.

The 21-year-old Kam, who was born at Yakota Air Base in Japan, and O'Shea quickly became the top U.S. pairs team. They have never been off the podium in four trips to nationals, winning the title in 2024 and the silver medal last month in St. Louis.

“It's been really hard work,” Kam said, “but it's nice to know that when I get through the day, I did enough.”

The U.S. has never had a pairs Olympic champion. In fact, it hasn't had a medalist of any flavor since Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard earned the bronze medal at the 1988 Calgary Games, and Kam and O'Shea are not considered favorites in the individual pairs event.

But they certainly left their mark on the team event.

They were fifth in the short program, edging reigning Olympic champions Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, helping the U.S. build a lead going into the free skate. There, they finished fourth ahead of Canada's Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, giving them an extra point that ended up being the margin of victory for the Americans against silver medalist Japan.

“It's what you worked your entire life for, both of us, since we were 4 years old,” O'Shea said. “You put every ounce of spare time — every time you could have gone and hang out with friends or had, I don't know, normal moments, right? Instead, you're back putting in the time on the ice. The sacrifices from our family but also from us, it just all goes into making this happen.”