An ice dance duo skated to AI music at the Olympics Amanda Silberling 2:31 PM PST · February 10, 2026 Czech ice dancers Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek made their Olympic debut on Monday, an unfathomable feat that takes a lifetime of dedication and practice. But the sibling duo used AI music in their rhythm dance program, which doesn’t break any official rules, but serves as a depressing symbol of how absolutely cooked we are.
As Mrázek spun his sister in a crazy cartwheel-lift-sort-of-move that made them look superhuman, one of the NBC commentators mentioned in passing, “This is AI generated, this first part,” referring to the music. Somehow, that admission is even more baffling than the gravity-defying tricks that the siblings showed off on the pressure of Olympic ice.
The Olympic ice dance competition is split into two events: the rhythm dance, where pairs must perform a routine that meets a specific theme, and the free dance. This season’s theme is “The Music, Dance Styles, and Feeling of the 1990s.” British ice dancing duo Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson paid tribute to the Spice Girls, while United States favorites Madison Chock and Evan Bates skated to a Lenny Kravitz medley.
But, for whatever reason — licensing issues? — Mrázková and Mrázek danced to a routine with music that’s half AC/DC and half AI. It’s weird. What’s even weirder is that this isn’t the duo’s first use of AI, nor is it the first time that this choice backfired.
Per the International Skating Union, the governing body that oversees competitive ice skating, the duo’s music choice for the rhythm dance this season has been “One Two by AI (of 90s style Bon Jovi)” and “Thunderstruck by AC/DC.” The official Olympics website confirms that the duo is using the AI-generated song for the rhythm dance portion.
ok I know this is an art account but I have been seething about this ever since Shana Bartel caught it and wrote about it in her blog (which you should be reading it’s very good – link below) and I just NEEDED to get it out of me. https://www.patreon.com/posts/142706982?utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=android_share #icedance #icedancing #figureskating #IceSkating #plagiarism
The Czech siblings have faced backlash before for using AI-generated music. Earlier in the season, they played a ’90s-inspired song for their routine that began with a wailing declaration: “Every night we smash a Mercedes-Benz!” If that sounds familiar, it’s because that lyric comes directly from the ’90s hit “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals (which, by the way, has an incredible music video shot in a Staten Island mall — the true essence of American suburbia!).
The AI-generated lyrics also include the lines, “Wake up, kids/We got the dreamer’s disease,” and “First we run, and then we laugh ’til we cry.” What a coincidence! Those lyrics also appear in the song “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals. The AI song is even titled “One Two,” which are the first words of… you can probably guess which song at this point.
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While it’s unclear what software the team used to generate this music, this is an LLM operating as it’s supposed to. These LLMs are trained on large libraries of music, often through legally dubious means. When prompted, LLMs produce the most statistically probable response to an input. That’s useful when writing code, but means a song “in the style of Bon Jovi,” will likely end up using some actual Bon Jovi lyrics.
And yet, the music industry seems at least temporarily enamored with the idea of “musicians” who aren’t totally real. Telisha Jones, a 31-year-old in Mississippi, used Suno to set her (hopefully real) poetry to music under the persona Xania Monet. Now she has a $3 million record deal .
It’s a shame that these Czech dancers’ accomplishment of skating at the Olympics may be marred by discourse around their use of AI music (discourse that I am actively contributing to). But come on! Isn’t this sport supposed to be creative?
Amanda Silberling Senior Writer
Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.
You can contact or verify outreach from Amanda by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at @amanda.100 on Signal.
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