Team USA figure skater Ilia Malinin, nicknamed the “Quad God,” missed the podium after the men’s free skate at the 2026 Winter Olympics in a shocking upset that saw him finish in eighth place.
Malinin, 21, was the gold-medal favorite after finishing the short program in first place earlier this week, but the mistakes began almost as soon as he hit the ice for the free skate on Friday, February 13. After completing his first jump, a quadruple flip, Malinin attempted a quadruple axel but managed only a single.
He went on to fall twice and botched several other jumps, including a quad loop that turned into a double.
Commentators Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski noted that Malinin’s technical program was so difficult that a few mistakes could still have resulted in a medal, but there were too many errors for that to happen.
Team USA figure skater Ilia Malinin flipped the script during his 2026 Winter Olympics debut. Malinin, 21, represented the United States in the men’s singles portion of the figure skating team event on Saturday, February 7, where he nailed many of his signature quad jumps before nailing a gravity-defying on-the-ice backflip. “I don’t watch ice […]
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan ultimately won gold, with Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama finishing with silver and Shun Sato, also from Japan, earning gold. Shaidorov, 21, is Kazakhstan’s first-ever gold medalist in figure skating. Kagiyama, 22, previously won silver at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
“I was not expecting that,” Malinin told NBC after his shocking performance. “I felt so ready getting on that ice. Maybe I was too confident it was going to go well.”
Malinin is the only figure skater in history to successfully land a quadruple axel in competition, and it had never been done at the Olympics. He was expected to attempt the jump on Friday in an effort to make history.
Speaking about what went wrong after the skate, he told NBC he thought it was “definitely mental,” adding, “Finally experiencing that Olympic atmosphere, it’s crazy. It’s really different. … I blew it. There’s no way that just happened.”
Immediately after finishing his skate, Malinin could be heard saying he wouldn’t have skated so poorly if he’d been sent to compete at the Winter Games in Beijing in 2022. He finished in second place that year in the U.S. Championships but was passed over for the Olympic team in favor of more internationally experienced competitors. Team USA’s Nathan Chen ultimately won gold.
While Malinin didn’t medal in the single’s event, he is already a gold medalist after he helped the U.S. win first place in the team skating event alongside Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn, Madison Chock, Evan Bates, Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea.
Malinin’s performance on Friday marks the second disappointment this week for American figure skating fans, who watched Chock, 33, and Bates, 36, lose the gold medal to French duo Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron during the ice dancing free skate on Wednesday, February 11. Chock and Bates finished in second place, just 1.43 points behind the French team.
“I think there were a lot of emotions flooding through us yesterday. I think there was some disappointment for sure,” Chock told People on Thursday, February 12. “It’s been a long journey, but I certainly have a lot of pride for what we have accomplished, and who we’ve become on the way to those accomplishments. So, in general, [we’re feeling] gratitude.”