Ilia Malinin Stunningly Misses Podium After Error-Laden Skate in Men’s Olympic Final

The Quad God failed to medal in the individual event at the Milan Cortina Games.

American Ilia Malinin shockingly failed to medal after making several mistakes during the men’s free skate final on Friday at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. | Erick W. Rasco/ Sports Illustrated

American Ilia Malinin stunningly fell short of winning his first individual Olympic gold medal on Friday night. In fact, he missed the podium altogether.

Malinin finished eighth in the men’s figure skating competition despite being the clear leader after the short program. He scored just 156.33 in the free skate and 264.49 in total, bowing out of the Milan Cortina Olympics in devastating fashion. Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov took home gold instead, while Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato won silver and bronze, respectively.

The 21-year-old Malinin, who entered the men’s figure skating competition as the heavy favorite, is a two-time world champion and four-time U.S. national champion, but the individual Olympic gold has eluded him in his young skating career—and it looks like he will continue to chase that prize after Friday’s woeful performance.

Malinin entered Friday’s free skate final in first place, holding a comfortable lead of 5.09 points over the then-second place Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama following the short program. Ahead of his highly anticipated free skate, Malinin was primed to make history by potentially performing his signature move, the quad axel, at the Olympics for the first time, a 4 1/2 revolution jump that’s so difficult nobody but him has landed it in figure skating competition. However, the American superstar pulled out early in his second two jumps and didn’t perform the quad axel at all during his program. He did perform a backflip toward the end, but the showmanship move drew far fewer technical points.

In all, Malinin lost 72 points on his jumps and was visibly emotional after his skate, though he did classily congratulate his rivals afterward.

He helped the Americans win gold in the team competition earlier this week but will unfortunately go home without any more silverware in Milan.

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