How a Former Ice Dancer Became Olympic Figure Skating’s First On-Ice Camera Operator

Industry InsightsOlympic Games 2026

by Johnnie BehiriFebruary 25^th, 2026

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At the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, which just ended a few days ago, former U.S. competitive ice dancer Jordan Cowan made broadcasting history as the first camera operator ever permitted on the ice during Olympic figure skating. Working for the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) with a custom-designed gimbal rig featuring manual focus, cinema zoom, and wireless transmission, Cowan captures the raw, unfiltered emotions of athletes in the seconds after their routines end, delivering intimate footage that traditional overhead and sideboard cameras simply cannot achieve.

We’ve already covered some of the exciting developments in filming sports events in this article, but now, here is something a bit different. The figure skating program at these Winter Games has produced some of the most emotionally charged moments of the entire competition. Through it all, a man in a white tuxedo has been gliding backward across the Olympic ice, camera in hand, capturing what he describes as “unexplored territory” in broadcast coverage.

From competitive skating to cinematography

Jordan Cowan grew up in Los Angeles, drawn to ice rinks partly because they had air conditioning his house lacked. He trained as a competitive ice dancer for Team USA for over a decade, reaching as high as seventh place at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. After retiring from competition in 2011, he transitioned into ballroom dancing, where he noticed something that would change his career trajectory: cameras on the dance floor were revolutionizing how television audiences experienced the art form. He wanted to bring that same intimacy to skating.

In 2018, Cowan founded On Ice Perspectives, a company dedicated to capturing figure skating from within the rink itself. What began as a social media experiment quickly evolved into a professional broadcast operation. His viral videos, filmed inches from world-class skaters performing at full speed, attracted an audience of over two million followers across platforms and caught the attention of major television producers.

The rig: custom-built for the ice

The technical demands of Cowan’s work are extraordinary. He operates a self-designed camera rig built around a lightweight steady camera mounted on an electronically stabilized gimbal. The stabilization system maintains a perfectly level horizon regardless of how much Cowan leans into crossovers or transitions, which is critical when skating backward at speeds exceeding 20 mph while carrying broadcast-grade equipment.

His setup includes manual focus control, a cinema zoom lens, and wireless video transmission to the OBS production truck. The current Olympic rig has not been officially disclosed, though Cowan was seen working with a DJI Ronin-SC paired with a Sony a7S III for his On Ice Perspectives content, but the broadcast rig has evolved substantially since then.

What is publicly known is that Cowan has deliberately chosen manual focus over autofocus for his Olympic work. In a recent Reuters interview, he explained that autofocus systems cannot anticipate the movement of a skater the way a human operator with skating experience can. By pulling focus manually between athletes and their surroundings, he guides viewer attention in ways that borrow more from narrative filmmaking than traditional sports broadcasting.

A deliberate approach to manual focus

Cowan’s equipment journey mirrors a broader industry trend toward cinema-style techniques in live sports production. He has progressed from shooting on an iPhone to action cameras and eventually to heavier, cinema-grade setups, each step bringing more creative control. His argument is compelling: live broadcast can benefit from techniques traditionally associated with movie sets, where focus pulls become a storytelling tool rather than an automated function.

This philosophy extends to his physical preparation. Cowan trains daily with Pilates and yoga to maintain the core strength and stability needed to operate a heavy camera rig while matching Olympic-level skating speeds. The physical skill required is essentially that of a competitive athlete performing a technical routine, except his choreography is improvised in real time.

The broadcast workflow at Milan Cortina

At the 2026 Games, Cowan works for the Olympic Broadcasting Services, the organization responsible for producing and distributing host coverage to national broadcasting rights holders worldwide. His role is precisely defined: he is not on the ice during competitive routines themselves, but captures the moments immediately before and after each performance, the skate-on and skate-off sequences that reveal athletes at their most emotionally unguarded.

The approach requires enormous sensitivity. When Malinin nailed his long program in the team competition and helped Team USA clinch gold, the skater punched excitedly toward Cowan’s camera. But after Malinin struggled in the singles free program, Cowan instinctively kept his distance, letting the camera observe the skater’s disappointment from a respectful remove. His rig also includes a microphone, which has led to spontaneous moments where athletes send messages to loved ones as they pass the camera on their way off the ice.

OBS has been pushing to expand its visual vocabulary at these Games, with drones and overhead camera systems becoming increasingly common across winter sports disciplines. But Cowan’s human-operated, on-ice perspective represents something different: a ground-level, high-definition view of technical elements like edge-work and rotational velocity that standard long-lens angles tend to flatten. The intimacy of the footage has gone viral on social media, with viewers noting that figure skating feels more dramatic and personal than ever before.

From Dancing on Ice to the Olympic stage

Cowan’s path to the Olympics was paved by years of professional broadcast experience. In 2019, he became the first skating camera operator for a live televised skating show when ITV’s “Dancing on Ice” hired him for their London production. That setup was considerably different from his current rig: the outside broadcast company Telegenic supplied a Sony HDC-P1 camera paired with a Canon HJ14 lens, mounted on a customized Ready Rig with a NEWTON stabilized remote head, a system typically used on cable cams and rail systems rather than handheld operation.

For his work on the show, Cowan received an Award for Excellence from the Guild of Television Camera Operators in 2020. He went on to film four seasons of “Dancing on Ice” for ITV, reaching a weekly live audience of over six million viewers in the UK. He also worked on CBC’s “Battle of the Blades” in Canada and filmed NBC’s Winter Olympics promotional spots, including Nathan Chen’s Jurassic World: Dominion trailer. Prior to the Milan Cortina Games, he had covered three U.S. Figure Skating Championships and the 2021 world exhibition gala.

Why it matters for sports broadcasting

The success of Cowan’s work points to a potential shift in how live sports coverage is produced. The traditional model relies on fixed camera positions, long telephoto lenses, and overhead angles to capture action from a distance. Cowan’s method inverts that entirely, placing the camera operator within the performance space and leveraging athletic ability as a core production skill.

Rather than using a long lens that separates the athlete from the crowd, Cowan aims to show the arena’s atmosphere, including standing ovations even after mistakes, while maintaining enough distance to avoid intrusion. He wears a white tuxedo specifically to blend into the icy environment, and has experimented with gray outfits as well. His ultimate measure of success is invisibility: athletes regularly tell him they did not realize he was on the ice at all.

Cowan has said that lighter cameras and improved battery technology are reshaping sports production, but he believes there will always be a place for larger rigs and classic cinematic techniques. As broadcasting standards continue to evolve, the 2026 Winter Olympics may serve as a template for other sports disciplines looking to offer more immersive coverage.

Featured image: (REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli).

Cowan’s work at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics raises questions about the future of sports broadcasting. Could we see on-ice camera operators become standard at future Winter Games? And does the success of this “athlete-as-operator” model suggest that other sports might benefit from camera operators who share the physical skill set of the competitors they film? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below