02/13/26 04:25:00
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02/13 16:23 CST 'Quad God' Ilia Malinin falls twice in Olympic disaster,
allowing Mikhail Shaidorov to claim gold
'Quad God' Ilia Malinin falls twice in Olympic disaster, allowing Mikhail
Shaidorov to claim gold
By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Sports Writer
MILAN (AP) --- American figure skating sensation Ilia Malinin fell twice in a
disastrous free skate that sent him tumbling all the way off the podium at the
Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday night, allowing Mikhail Shaidorov of
Kazakhstan to claim a stunning gold medal.
The self-styled "Quad God," who led by a comfortable margin after the short
program, merely had to deliver a mediocre performance to add individual gold to
his team gold medal. Instead, the 21-year-old Malinin was trying to fight back
tears after one of the worst nights of his career, one that left a star-packed
crowd inside Milano Ice Arena sitting in stunned silence.
"I blew it," Malinin said. "That's honestly the first thing that came to my
mind."
Shaidorov finished with a career-best 291.58 points to give his nation its
first gold medal of the Winter Games, while Yuma Kagiyama earned his second
consecutive Olympic silver medal and Japanese teammate Shun Sato took bronze.
Then there was Malinin, who fell all the way to eighth place. He finished with
264.49 points, ending a two-plus year unbeaten streak that covered 14 full
competitions, including two consecutive world championships that he won with
ease.
"Honestly, yeah, I was not expecting that," he said. "I felt going into this
competition I was so ready. I just felt ready going on that ice. I think maybe
that might have been the reason, is I was too confident it was going to go
well."
Much of Malinin's journey in Milan had felt a little bit off.
He was beaten by Kagiyama in the short program of the team event, later
acknowledging that the pressure of competing in the Olympics had started to get
to him. And he still wasn't quite his dominant self despite a head-to-head win
against Sato in the team free skate, which clinched the second consecutive gold
medal for the Americans in the event.
But by the time of his individual short program Tuesday night, Malinin's
fearless swagger and unrivaled spunk was back. He took a five-point lead over
Kagiyama and Adam Siao Him Fa of France that seemed insurmountable going into
Friday night.
Malinin decided to practice early in the day at U.S. Figure Skating's alternate
training base in Bergamo, just outside of Milan, allowing him to escape the
Olympic bubble and avoid having to sit in the arena all night. And he was the
picture of calm throughout his warmup, never once falling in all of his
practice jumps while wearing his glittering black and gold ensemble.
Then came a performance that might well haunt Malinin for the rest of his
career.
He opened with a quad flip, one of a record-tying seven in his planned program,
then appeared to be going after the quad axel only he has ever landed in
competition, but had to bail out. He recovered to land a quad lutz --- and then
the problems really began.
Malinin only doubled a planned quad loop, throwing his timing off. He fell on a
quad lutz, preventing him from doing the second half of the quad lutz-triple
toe loop combination that would have earned him big points. And in his final
jumping pass, which was supposed to be a high-scoring quad salchow-triple axel,
Malinin only could muster a double salchow --- and he fell on that.
By the time the music stopped, Malinin was left trying to mask the sorrow for a
crowd that included Nathan Chen, the 2022 Olympic champion; seven-time Olympic
gold medal gymnast Simone Biles; actor Jeff Goldblum and his wife, Emilie.
Shaidorov was just as shocked as everyone as the realization hit that he had
won the gold medal.
___
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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