MILAN (AP) — Ilia Malinin silenced any doubters about the self-proclaimed “Quad God” Tuesday night as the American prodigy pulled off a near-perfect short program full of high-flying jumps and a breathtaking backflip to take a big lead at the Cortina Olympics in Milan.
The two-time reigning world champion was awarded 108.16 points for his program, set to music from the action-adventure video game ‘Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’. Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama came in second with 103.07 points, but that five-point difference going into the free skate is huge considering the huge technical advantage Malinin has over a longer program.
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Adam Siao Him Fa of France, the last skater to beat Malinin more than two years ago, came third with 102.55 points.
Malinin was defeated by Kagiyama in the short program during the team competition last weekend, leaving many wondering if the overwhelming favorite for Olympic gold was letting the pressure get to him. But he bounced back in the free skate to beat Japan’s Shun Sato in a head-to-head, giving the US a second consecutive gold medal and giving him momentum.
He wore it in Milan’s skating arena on Tuesday evening.
Malinin opened with a big quad flip, landing a perfect triple axel — perhaps saving the quad axel only he’s ever landed for the free skate — and a quad lutz-triple toe loop combination that scored more than 22 points on its own.
By the time he performed the backflip and his signature “raspberry spin,” the crowd was ready to jump up in applause.
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Kagiyama was the only skater left and he almost matched Malinin with a beautiful program of his own. But on his final jump, the triple axel, the reigning silver medalist had to step out, costing him valuable points in the execution grade.
Both will have a few days to think about their decisive free skate. It doesn’t happen until Friday evening.
The opening night of men’s figure skating featured a little bit of everything.
There was the brutal pleasure of it a “Minions” program by Spanish skater Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate, who last week feared he wouldn’t be able to perform it due to a copyright problem. There was the artistry of the Japanese skaters, the high-flying aerial acrobatics of the American contingent, and one of the most emotional moments of the entire Winter Games.
American figure skater Maxim Naumov, whose parents Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov died in a plane crash just over a year ago, fulfilled a dream they had shared by performing on Olympic ice. As his program came to an end, Naumov remained kneeling in the middle of the rink, looked up at the sky and said to them, “Look what we’ve done.”
“No matter what life throws at you, if you can be resilient and push a little more than you think, you can do so much more,” said Naumov, who brought a photo of his parents to the kiss-and-cry, and whose score of 85.65 easily advanced him to the free skate.
“You have to have that willpower and do things you love,” he said, “and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
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The podium battle between the real contenders started with Kao Miura, the former world junior champion. But last month’s Four Continents winner threw his opening quad salchow, fell on a later jump and never really recovered.
Sato, the second of the Japanese powerhouse trio, made a mistake of his own when he spun out of the second half of a quad-toe-triple-toe combo. He went through the rest of the program but scored only 88.70 points, putting him well out of contention.
Olympic Games AP: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
