Key events
Bryan Graham was at the arena tonight, you can read his full report below:
Shaidorov’s win should be celebrated. He skated brilliantly. He may be Malinin’s rival for years to come.
But it’ll be impossible to remember this event as anything other than a catastrophe for the world’s best skater over the past three years by a wide margin.
The flip side is that Malinin came through in the team event, which means several US skaters will leave Italy with gold medals. That may be of little consolation at the moment.
No other sporting event has the drama of the Olympics. Not the World Cup, where the players all immediately turn around and return to lucrative and high-profile professional careers. Only here. When it goes well, it’s enthralling. In this case, it’s heartbreaking.
Thanks for following along. Now let’s go figure out what happened in curling, which has suddenly turned into pro wrestling …
Final standings
291.58 Shaidorov (Kazakhstan)
280.06 Kagiyama (Japan)
274.90 Sato (Japan)
273.92 Cha (South Korea)
273.78 Gogolev (Canada)
271.21 Gumennik (Neutral)
269.27 Fa (France)
264.49 Malinin (USA)
263.71 Grassl (Italy)
260.27 Egadze (Georgia)
259.94 Aymoz (France)
259.06 Torgashev (USA)
246.88 Miura (Japan)
246.64 Britschgi (Switzerland)
243.18 Rizzo (Italy)
236.82 Selevko (Estonia)
229.08 Jin (China)
226.46 Vasiljevs (Latvia)
224.17 Marsak (Ukraine)
223.36 Naumov (USA)
222.25 Samoilov (Poland)
219.06 Carrillo (Mexico)
214.33 Li (Chinese Taipei)
202.38 Hagara (Slovakia)
Malinin immediately chats with NBC and says he felt ready. Maybe too confident, he says.
“I think it was definitely mental,” Malinin says when asked if it was physical or mental. He says the Olympics are just different.
What was his first thought when the music ended?
“I blew it!” Malinin says with a smile.
He plans to continue and learn from this. He’s still young.
Mikhail Shaidorov wins figure skating gold; Malinin 8th
In the kiss and cry, Malinin is complaining that he should’ve gone to the last Olympics, which would’ve prepared him for this moment.
Gold to Mikhail Shaidorov. Japan takes silver and bronze – Kagiyama and Sato.
This picture says it all.
Before the Olympics, I saw someone giving odds of -10000 for Malinin to medal. Imagine if you had bet on him to miss out.
Malinin is beside himself as he finishes. A gold is mathematically impossible. A silver is almost certainly out of the question.
He lands the backflip, at least.
But this is heartbreaking.
He lands a quad toe/triple flip. One more big combo – no, it’s just a double salchow, and he falls on THAT!
This is an absolute disaster.
That has to be it, then. No quad axel. No seven-quad showing. No gold medal.
Quad lutz … NO. He falls!
Malinin has three more quads planned, and they’re all in combination. He has basically given away more than 20 points so far.
Malinin rebounds with a quad lutz that’s absolutely fine.
Quad loop becomes a double loop. Uh oh.
First up: Quad flip. No problem.
Next: Quad axel if he so chooses. Nope – single axel.
Here we go … and I’ll update frequently during this skate.
Kagiyama gets a 176.99 and holds on to the podium. He’s behind Shaidorov but ahead of Sato, so that’s at least a bronze. It’ll be a silver if Malinin does extremely poorly.
The Malinin dilemma …
Malinin could play it safe and take the gold medal. Or he could go out and land a quad axel as one of seven quads.
Which would you do?
As I said many, many hours ago, you really hate to see someone look less than their best in the Olympics. But Kagiyama was always the underdog, and he has the consolation prize of knowing he beat Malinin in the team event short program.
His finish is dazzling. He’s a fun skater to watch.
But his technical score is 92.83, more than 20 behind Shaidorov.
Does Sato have a chance to finish ahead of his fellow Japanese skater?
Kagiyama two-foots the landing on his last quad. His next two jumping passes are fine, but he’s going to struggle to get ahead of Shaidorov, let alone put pressure on Malinin.
Yuma Kagiyama opens with a quad salchow, but he steps out of the landing and loses some points. Next is a quad flip, and he falls.
Can he rebound? He lands the quad-double combination, then a triple axel-double axel.
Looking ahead: Fugiyama has four quads planned. One is a combo. The music is Turandot: Christopher Tin Finale.
Fa’s score is 166.72. He’s down to sixth and will finish no higher than eighth.
Here we go … final two skaters …
Fa’s step sequences are breathtaking, as are his spins.
He lands a backflip. But he had to land the jumps.
Continuing with Fa: He does well on a quad-triple combination, then again puts a hand down on a quad salchow. He’s skating for pride at this point.
Fa falls on his first jump, a quad lutz. It’s a hard landing, and he winces.
Next, a quad toeloop, and he has to put a hand down to stay up.
Shaidorov is probably on the podium now.
Let’s review …
After the short program, Malinin had 108.16, and Kagiyama had 103.07.
But the next skater up, Adam Siao Him Fa of France, was right there with a 102.55.
A good skate keeps him on the podium. A great skate means he could win if Malinin and Kagiyama are less than perfect.
He’ll skate to some Philip Glass.
After review, Grassl’s technical score drops under 90. He ends up with a 170.25 and drops to sixth overall.
Grassl has three quads planned to start, but he has a clumsy landing on the first and may have underrotated. That’s a negative execution score already, and we’ll see what the review says.
The next two quads are sharp. A triple axel-triple toe combo is a bit wobbly.
He’ll have to nail this triple axel-double axel-double axel pass. And he does.
But after all that, he has to put a hand down to stay up after a triple lutz. He compensates by adding a combination, but it won’t be enough.
Tara Lipinski apparently loves the routine. I find it puzzling. There are long gaps in the music. How does someone keep up the artistic impression through that?
Reviews knock his technical score down to 114.68. Still stellar.
The technical score stays there, and he ends up with a free skate of 198.64 and a total of 291.58.
Good luck to Daniel Grassl, who’ll at least have the home crowd behind him.
After finishing, Shaidorov falls to his back, breathing heavily. That looked both exhausting and effortless at the same time.
Shaidorov starts with the highest-scored element I’ve seen today – triple axel-euler-QUAD salchow. That’s a base of 18.20, and he’s up at 21.66 to start with.
He changes his program a bit and ends up doing three straight quads, though he drops a combination.
One more quad planned, for a total of five, and this one is a quad toe-triple toe combo. No problem.
Triple axel. Very good. Triple axel-double axel. Also good.
He’s going to move into first by a wide margin and will surely have a chance at the podium. His season best is 187.21, but he’s going to obliterate that. He may break 200.
Technical score: 116.95. Sato’s was 101.85.
It’s close! Cha has stellar component scores of 87.04. That takes him to 181.20 for the free skate and a total of 273.92, just 0.98 points behind Sato, whose medal chances just took a slight step forward.
Next: Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan.
Elsewhere, congratulations to Great Britain on their first medal of the Games:
Cha’s triple axel-double axel combo is very good. He’s also getting high scores on his spins, which are beautiful. Personally, I’m not digging the music, which probably means the judges love it.
He gets a 5 on a choreographic sequence with a base value of 3. He’s that good aside from the bobbles on the jumps.
Tech score is 97.17. Now down to 95.27. He won’t catch Sato.
Cha Junhwan needs a 182.19 to move into the lead. His season best is 184.73, so it’s possible.
He opens with two quads – neither in combination. The salchow is brilliant. The toeloop is … a fall. It’s unfortunate. He looked like he had all but landed it.
Triple-triple is good. Triple axel is good. When he lands a jump, he lands it beautifully. But he has surely already given up too many points to factor into the medal conversation here. The top three were all at least 10 points ahead.
Could Sato sneak onto the podium? Hard to say. The top three here all have technically demanding programs. Sato could possibly get ahead of the first three, but it would probably take a serious mistake by the top three for him to move any higher.
First up: Cha Junhwan (South Korea), the 2023 world championship silver medalist. He has two quads planned. He’ll likely have to be perfect to stay ahead of Sato.
Jeff Goldblum is in the crowd. So is Simone Biles, which seems apt – Biles and Malinin have both done unprecedented things in their sports.
Standings after Group 3
Each asterisk is a skater from Group 3.
274.90* Sato (Japan)
273.78* Gogolev (Canada)
271.21* Gumennik (Neutral)
260.27 Egadze (Georgia)
259.94* Aymoz (France)
259.06* Torgashev (USA)
246.88 Miura (Japan)
246.64 Britschgi (Switzerland)
243.18 Rizzo (Italy)
236.82 Selevko (Estonia)
229.08 Jin (China)
226.46 Vasiljevs (Latvia)
224.17* Marsak (Ukraine)
223.36 Naumov (USA)
222.25 Samoilov (Poland)
219.06 Carrillo (Mexico)
214.33 Li (Chinese Taipei)
202.38 Hagara (Slovakia)
Six skaters left. And we all know who’s coming up last.
You’d have to think this is someone who could have an acting career. He’s mesmerizing, even when he’s basically standing still.
His jumps are inconsistent, with a triple axel-triple salchow going just fine but his next two jumps ending up with wild landings.
He ends by putting on a menacing face as he races across the ice, and he stops right up at the judges’ table, which must be scary if they’re not expecting it.
Technical scores are a good bit lower than Torgashev’s, let alone Sato’s or Gogolev’s.
Aymoz pops a quad down to a triple on his opener, and it didn’t look smooth. He rebounds to land his next planned quad. He has a triple axel-double axel combo after he does something akin to the limbo.
Artistically, this is a lot of fun. But he struggles to land a triple loop. He’s not at the technical level as Sato, Gogolev or Gumennik. At least, not tonight.
Getting a tip from elsewhere that the f-bomb was dropped in an argument during Canada-Sweden curling. That … doesn’t usually happen.
Torgashev gets a 170.12 for the free skate, which is a personal best. Total is 259.06, fifth place with seven skaters to go.
From France, it’s Kevin Aymoz, skating to the Bolero …
Aesthetically, this program isn’t grabbing me. But he landed the triple axel. He has another one of those planned, a combo with a double axel. He gets through that one as well, along with a triple-triple. The technical score should be OK, though not as strong as the current top three.
The end of the program is more fun to watch. He hops around as if being chased.
Just an 86.48 on technical scores, pre-review.
Torgashev has two planned quads, and they’re his first two jumps, the latter a quad-triple combo. The first one is fine; the combo is not. He stays up but steps out of the combination as he stumbles.
One difference to my non-expert eyes – he seems to take a very long time to get into his jumps, gliding about halfway down the ice and doing nothing other than getting ready for takeoff.
Sato gets a 186.20, just 0.17 behind Gogolev in the free skate but good enough to lift him into first overall at 274.90.
Next: the USA’s Andrew Torgashev.
Sato has a very strong opening. Quad lutz gets massive execution points. Triple axel-euler-triple salchow is very positive. Quad-triple combination also impresses.
He only has one more quad planned, but he lands that perfectly as well. Then a triple axel-double axel is impeccable.
Of all things, he has a rocky landing on a triple lutz. That’s his only error. This is shaping up to be another 100-point technical score. He finishes with 101.43, and now the judges will pick through it all again.
Quite a few Japanese flags in the stands.
The technical scores hold up, and Gogolev shatters his previous season best with a free skate of 186.37, nearly two points ahead of Gumennik. He’s in first so far with a total of 273.78.
Now it’s Shun Sato, who made Malinin work for the win in the team event. Time for some Stravinsky.
Gogolev is skating to some Rachmaninov. His quad salchow gets positive marks, as does a quad toeloop. Then it’s a quad-triple combination that’s not quite as positive as the first two but still OK.
Triple axel-euler-triple salchow – no problem. This is very good.
Can he land a planned triple flip-triple axel? Yes indeed. Base is 14.63, but his current mark is about two points ahead of that.
He nearly botches the landing on his last jump, a triple loop. He’ll be slightly downgraded for that. But his technical score is getting close to Gumennik’s (pending reviews, of course).
The crowd claps along with the music near the end as he gracefully changes directions about 300 times.
Technical score for now is 103.27, just behind Gummenik. We’ll see how much the reviews knock it down, but that was superb.
Marsak cuts a disconsolate figure as he finishes. His technical score is just 64.92. Final free skate score: 137.28. Total: 224.17. He drops to eighth, far behind a couple of skaters from the first group.
Next: Canada’s Stephen Gogolev, who had a fun free skate in the team event.
Kyrylo Marsak is representing Ukraine. He plans a quad lutz. It becomes a triple. Or is it? Weir says it was a double.
He falls on his quad salchow, but he’s smooth through a triple axel-double axel-double axel. Then a planned triple axel becomes a single.
The music is I’m Tired by Labrinth and Zendaya. It’s a nice program artistically, and he recovers on his last three jumping passes.
Gummenik’s season’s best in the free skate is 169.02. His technical score alone is near 115. This will be close to 200 – Malinin territory. Good thing Ilia has more than 20 points on him from the short program.
Reviews knock the technical score down to 111.83. Still extraordinary.
Until … they must have found something seriously wrong. Now it’s 107.96. Now 106.02. Is this the stock market or a figure skating score? Now 104.27??
Ah – the triple axel was apparently underrotated. Now 103.84 – he’s lost 11 points in reviews.
Finally, the adjustments stop there. Components are 80.65, and that’s 184.49 for the free skate and 271.21 overall, nearly 11 points ahead of Egadze.
