These days, Michael Christian Martinez spends his mornings training on the ice for two to three hours and his afternoons coaching. A few weeks ago, his days were only about his students. Now they’re about him too.
Earlier this week, the first Filipino figure skater to compete at the Winter Olympics announced he was coming out of retirement to compete at the 2026 Philippine National Figure Skating Championships this November, the same month he turns 30. In his Facebook post, he admitted it took “a LOT” of convincing. When asked who did the convincing.
“My fans, family, friends, and especially my manager!” he said, laughing.
The deciding push came from the rink itself. After years of coaching, watching his students compete reminded him how much he missed competing himself. “I’ve been focusing on my students for the past few years, and watching them compete made me realize how much I missed it,” he said.
He also found inspiration in American skater Alysa Liu, who returned from her own early retirement. “Seeing how much she enjoyed performing on such a big stage, I thought, why not give it another try?”
He is clear about what this comeback is not. “I just want to experience that feeling again, but without the pressure. And let’s be real, I’m not here to compete against the younger generation. I’m too old for that!” Then he added with a laugh: “In the skating world, senior citizen na ako.”
Skating Without The Weight
Martinez was 17 when he carried the Philippine flag into Sochi in 2014, and he competed again at PyeongChang four years later. After 2018, he said the pressure to win had made him feel he was losing himself.
The difference now, he said, is simple. “I know I have nothing left to prove. Before, I was always thinking about winning, scores, and qualifying. It got to a point where I forgot to just enjoy skating.”
This time he wants to perform and enjoy being on the ice without obsessing over placements. That doesn’t mean he has stopped caring. “Of course, I still want to do well. I’m still an athlete after all,” he said. “But I don’t want winning to be the only reason I’m competing.”
Training At 30, Coaching On The Side, And No Third Olympics
In his announcement, Martinez joked about his knees and back. Asked what training looks like now compared with his teenage years, he answered in one word: “Struggle!” Then: “But in a good way.”
Martinez says his stamina has dropped noticeably since his teenage years, and his body now needs far more time to recover between sessions. As a teenager he could spend entire days on the ice and wake up the next morning with little trouble. Now a few hours of training are enough to wear him out. This is a common challenge for skaters who return later in their careers. Elite men’s figure skating has long favored athletes in their late teens and early twenties, when the body can best absorb the repeated impact of jumps, and at 30, Martinez is managing his workload with that in mind.
His own training also has to fit around his work as a coach. Since returning to the Philippines, he has taught young skaters at SM Megamall and Mall of Asia, and none of them will be his rivals at Nationals. His students are girls between 13 and 15, most of them still at the novice level, so they compete in entirely different categories.
He says his students have welcomed the comeback. In his view, it gives them something useful: they get to watch their coach go through the same preparation he puts them through, from daily training to the nerves before a competition. It also shows them, by example, that a skater keeps learning long after becoming a coach.
His awareness of these limits also shapes his goals. Martinez has hinted at a few personal targets but is not yet ready to share them. He is clear about one decision, though: he will not pursue a third Olympic appearance. Having competed at that level twice, he knows the physical toll and mental strain an Olympic campaign demands, and he has chosen not to put himself through that again.
The One That Got Away
When Alex Eala’s Wimbledon run sparked conversations online this year, many Filipinos looked back at Martinez’s career and called it “sayang,” a talent the country never fully supported. Some have called him the TOTGA, or “the one that got away,” of Philippine figure skating.
He doesn’t take it as a sad label. “I’m very flattered,” he said. “For me, it means people saw my potential and believed I could have achieved more. And just knowing that people still remember and appreciate what I’ve done means a lot to me.”
His circumstances are very different from 2014, when his family mortgaged their home to keep his skating going. This time he’s paying for it himself. “I’m in a different position in life. I have my own business here in the Philippines, I’m coaching, and I also work as an influencer and brand endorser,” he said. “These help me financially support my training and competitions.”
A Message To The Boy At SM Southmall
Martinez’s story started when, as a young boy shopping with his mother at SM Southmall, he stopped to watch skaters jumping and spinning on the mall’s ice rink. If he could talk to that boy now, he knows what he’d say.
“I’d tell him to keep dreaming, even when people tell him it’s impossible,” he said. “I’d tell him that it’s not going to be easy. There will be a lot of sacrifices, disappointments, injuries, and moments when he’ll want to give up. But there will also be experiences and opportunities he could never have imagined.”
“And of course, I’d tell him not to forget to enjoy skating.”
Then he laughed. “And maybe I’d also tell him to take better care of his knees and back, because we’re going to need those at 30!”
Twelve years after Sochi, Michael Martinez is no longer skating to prove he belongs. He’s skating because he still loves it, and because his students are watching to see whether their coach can do what he asks of them. There is no Olympic spot at stake this time, no scores he needs to reach, and no house on the line. What’s left is the simple version of the dream that began at a mall rink, now in the hands of a man who has known both the highs and the costs of chasing it. Whatever happens at Nationals this November, he has already won back something the pressure once took from him: the joy of stepping onto the ice for himself.
