In a major upset at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov won gold in men's figure skating after U.S. favorite Ilia Malinin fell twice in the free skate, finishing eighth. Japan's Yuma Kagiyama earned silver, matching his Beijing result, while teammate Shun Sato took bronze.
The men's figure skating free skate at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics took place on February 14, where U.S. skater Ilia Malinin, 21, failed to hold his five-point lead from the short program, falling twice and making several errors to finish eighth with 264.49 points. Malinin said, "Honestly, I still haven't been able to process what just happened. The Olympic pressure overwhelmed me."
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov, 21, rallied from sixth after the short to deliver a flawless program with five quad jumps, scoring a career-best 291.58 points for his nation's first Olympic gold in the event. Shaidorov stated simply, "It was my goal. It's why I wake up and go to training. That's it."
Japan's Yuma Kagiyama scored 280.06 points for his second consecutive Olympic silver, following Beijing, while teammate Shun Sato earned bronze with 274.90 points. Kagiyama had beaten Malinin in the team event short program.
Malinin successfully opened with a quad flip among his planned seven quads but aborted a quad axel attempt, doubled a quad loop, fell on a quad lutz missing the triple toe loop combination, and fell again on a downgraded double salchow in his final pass instead of a quad salchow-triple axel. Italy's Daniel Grassl commented, "He never messes up, so obviously we're all a little surprised by how it went."
The crowd included 2022 Olympic champion Nathan Chen, gymnast Simone Biles, and actor Jeff Goldblum with his wife Emilie. Malinin had practiced earlier that day at a U.S. base in Bergamo outside Milan and appeared calm in warmups, but faltered in competition. This ended Malinin's unbeaten streak of over two years across 14 events.
