Ilia Malinin dazzled the crowd in Tuesday’s competition, but was it enough to qualify for the finals? Here’s what judges thought of him and other Team USA skaters.
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — Ilia Malinin already led Team USA to a gold medal team victory on Saturday. He’s now on a journey to his own medal with a performance at the men’s single skating short program.
The two-time world champion, known as “Quad God” for his unique ability to land the incredibly difficult quadruple axel trick multiple times in a single performance, once again dazzled judges in the penultimate performance of the qualifying program on Tuesday.
He scored 108.16 during his performance on Tuesday, just missing a personal best but putting him in first place and qualifying for the event’s finals on Friday. Fellow Team USA skaters also qualified for finals, with Andrew Torgashev scoring an 88.94 for eighth place and Maxim Naumov scoring an 85.65 for 14th place. The top 24 skaters in the event moved on to Friday’s finals.
“The Quad God says, ‘Tonight, I own the Olympic arts,” commentators at the Games said after his performance.
Malinin’s performance on Tuesday redeemed what was only a mediocre performance by his own standards in the team’s short program a week ago. His real strength will come out in the free skate on Friday, where there are seven jumping passes, and his incredible leaping ability gives him a tremendous advantage.
Even though the 2026 Games are Malinin’s first Olympic appearance, Quad God has consistently set scores that rival the best skaters in history. He began his season by capturing the Lombardia Trophy, then he dominated the Grand Prix de France and Skate Canada, where his score of 333.81 was nearly 80 points better than second-place Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia.
His personal-best score nearly broke the world record of 335.30 points, set by Team USA skater Nathan Chen in 2019 at the Grand Prix Final. Chen, at the 2022 Winter Olympics, became the first American figure skating champion since Evan Lysacek in 2010.
“He has such a passionate fire for skating,” says his choreographer, Shae-Lynn Bourne. “He’s one of those who has skates on an hour before we work and an hour after we work. He just puts the time in, and he’s constantly — not just loves to skate, but he’s not someone who will ever coast, or just go on what he knows he can do. He constantly wants to be challenged.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.