In the men's short program of the figure skating team event at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics, Japan's Yuma Kagiyama outperformed U.S. star Ilia Malinin, keeping Japan close to the defending champion United States. Malinin scored 98.00 points, below his best, while Kagiyama led with 108.67. The teams are neck-and-neck in the competition.
On February 8, 2026, the men's short program in the figure skating team event took place at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. U.S. representative Ilia Malinin, 21, made his Olympic debut but fell short of his best, scoring 98.00 points. His routine to a medley from the "The Lost Crown" video game started with a quad flip, but featured a hesitant triple Axel and an underrotated quad Lutz. The acrobatic finish with a backflip and one-armed cartwheel failed to impress judges enough, leaving him more than 12 points off his personal best from last year's worlds.
Malinin said, "I'm pretty happy with what I did because that's only 50 percent of my full potential." He added, "My team event was to focus on myself and how I feel just overall. I wasn't expecting to go out here and win the competition, that was not my goal here for the team event. I just felt excited to be here—come on, it's the Olympics!"
Japan's Yuma Kagiyama, 22, the individual silver medalist from Beijing 2022, delivered a crowd-pleasing routine to a remix of "I Wish" with two quadruple jumps, scoring 108.67 points—slightly off his season's best of 108.77. Kagiyama noted, "I always get good motivation from Ilia. He is a good jumper who can do the quad, so I always think that I want to catch him, match his performance." He continued, "My score (108.67 points) was close to my best score (108.77), so I'm satisfied with that. It is also very important for me to compete for our team, so I am very happy that we are close to the USA. I didn't feel pressure and I didn't feel nervous because our team was cheering for me during the performance, so they gave me a lot of power."
Later that day, the U.S. world champion ice dance pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates, a husband-and-wife team, earned their season's best of 133.23 points in the free dance, pulling the United States ahead. Current team standings: United States 44 points, Japan 39, Italy 37, Canada 35, Georgia 32. France, South Korea, China, Great Britain, and Poland were eliminated.
The pairs, men's, and women's free skates are scheduled for Sunday. The United States has medaled in every team event since its introduction in 2014. Japan won team silver in Beijing four years ago.
