In one of the most stunning upsets in Olympic figure skating history, Team USA figure skater Ilia Malinin lost his expected spot on the podium Friday night in Milan, finishing eighth after entering the men’s free skate with a head start and expectations of taking home the gold.
The 21-year-old two-time world champion has been undefeated in major competitions since 2023. But that all changed during the men’s free skate program on Friday when he fell twice and downgraded multiple jumps in a performance that shocked the sold out arena and millions of fans watching around the world.
Malinin had been nicknamed the “Quad God,” and was being lauded by the media, which many claim helped contribute to the loss as the immense pressure took a toll on the first-time Olympic competitor.
His free skate started going downhill after he failed to execute the exceedingly difficult quadruple axel. To date, Malinin is the only skater to successfully land a quad axel during a competition, and so far, it’s never been landed on Olympic ice. The skater failed to rotate and popped the jump into a single axel instead.
Later, he fell while attempting a quadruple Lutz and a double Salchow, which was also meant to be a quad.
Following his devastating skate, Malinin described the mental pressure. “Before getting into my starting pose, those experiences, memories and thoughts and pressure, it just felt so overwhelming,” he said.
Malinin also told NBC News that he “blew it,” and mentioned the weight of expectations once again. “All of this pressure, all of the media, and just being the Olympic gold hopeful was a lot,” the Team USA skater explained.
Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov took home the gold with 291.58 points, earning his country’s first Winter Games gold medal in over three decades. Malinin is being praised for immediately walking over to Shaidorov to embrace and congratulate him after the results were announced.
Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama took home silver while Shun Sato, also from Japan, earned the bronze medal. Malinin finished with 264.49 points after being docked 72 points for errors, giving him an eighth-place finish.
Malinin had already secured a team gold medal earlier in the Olympic Games, but had been aggressively seeking an individual gold.
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