US Ilia Malinin loses gold, Mikhail Shaidorov takes Olympic title

What looked like an early coronation turned out to be one of the biggest surprises in figure skating in recent times.

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14 de febrero, 2026

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American "God of the quadruple" Ilia Malinin shocked all and sundry on Friday after losing badly in the figure skating category when he seemed to have the gold practically assured as he had a lead of more than five points before the program. However, what looked like an early coronation ended up turning into one of figure skating's biggest recent surprises. The Olympic title ended up in the hands of Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov, who capitalized on the mistakes of the favorites.

Shaidorov received a total score of 291.58 and climbed from fifth place after the short program to the top of the podium. Meanwhile, Japan's Yuma Kagiyama (280.06) and Shun Sato (274.90) took silver and bronze, respectively, in an evening in which several technical specialists failed to sustain the consistency of their routines.

Malinin was the last of the 24 competitors to take to the ice, with the championship seemingly within reach after the stumbles of his direct rivals. While he got off to an interesting start with a quad flip and a quad lutz, the misses soon began. The planned quad axel ended up reduced to a single jump; he later suffered a fall on another quad lutz and also executed doubles on attempts he normally completes with more rotation. The 21-year-old American was able to salvage some points with a quad toe loop combination, but the damage was done.

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"I blew it. That's honestly the first thing that came to my mind. There's no way that could have happened. I was preparing all season and I was so confident in my program, so confident in everything. I really don't have any words," Malinin said. The result ended an unbeaten streak of more than two years that spanned 14 competitions, including two world titles and three consecutive Grand Prix finals. Heading into these Olympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina, Malinin had pushed the technical boundaries of skating, being the only athlete to land a quadruple axel in official competition and structuring programs with unprecedented quadruple axel difficulty.

Shaidorov makes history

For Shaidorov, the victory represented the greatest achievement of his career and a milestone for his country. His clean and composed free program, underpinned by five precisely executed quadruple jumps, was exactly the kind of performance that decides Olympic titles when the favorites falter. Even he seemed surprised when the final scores appeared that confirmed his triumph.

With that, he became Kazakhstan's first Olympic figure skating champion, giving the country its first gold medal at these Games and its first gold in any discipline at the Winter Olympics since Lillehammer.