Image: @Olympics
The iconic fighting game Mortal Kombat isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when you think about the Winter Olympics, but that didn’t stop it from making a surprise cameo this past weekend, at the figure skating Exhibition Gala.
As is tradition, the gala event, which took place at the Milano Ice Skating Arena on Saturday, saw some of the world’s best figure skaters getting the chance to express their personality through their chosen sport, without any judges or any medals on the line.
This resulted in some pretty unique performances you wouldn’t typically expect to see in regular competitive events, including a spectacular Mortal Kombat-inspired routine from the Georgian silver medallists Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava.
Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava’s Mortal Kombat routine from the gala
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The performance, in case you missed it, featured Metelkina and Berulava in costume as Kitana and Sub-Zero, respectively, with “Techno Syndrome” by The Immortals playing over the speakers in the arena. This is a song that was first created for the 1994 album, Mortal Kombat: The Album (a promotional album for the game’s console ports), which was then later adopted for the 1995 movie adaptation, and subsequently became known as the series’s theme song.
Apart from the costumes and the instantly recognizable music, the performance also featured some other noticeable nods to the game, with Berulava mirroring some of Sub-Zero’s moves (miming the character’s Ice Ball throwing animation, for instance) while elsewhere, both performers also incorporated a friendship finishing move.
Worth noting is that this isn’t the first time the pair has performed a tribute to the fighting game, with the skaters previously doing the same routine at the ISU European Championships in Sheffield last month and the ISU World Team Trophy in Tokyo in 2025, among other events.
Hailing from Manchester, Jack has a particular fondness for point-and-click adventure games. In the past, he’s written about lost games from studios like Sony Manchester, Genepool Software, and DMA Design, and has made a habit of debunking video game rumours.