MILAN — Ilia Malinin wagged his tongue in joy halfway through his short program in the men’s competition Tuesday night at the 2026 Winter Olympics. He had just completed his three industrial strength jumping passes without a hitch, including two majestic quadruple jumps. Now he was flying past center ice, and his emotions got the better of him, and he was singing along with his music in the icy arena air. He was back, and he knew it.
The 21-year-old self-proclaimed “Quad God” had already lived a lifetime at these Olympic Games. He had experienced the interesting combination of being both tested and, now, rested. The Olympic team figure skating competition had challenged him in ways he hadn’t expected. But he had passed that test, leading the Americans to the gold medal by doing double duty in both the short and long programs when he hadn’t originally planned to.
“I definitely felt like I was in a better zone this time,” Malinin said after he won the short program, setting himself up beautifully to win a second gold medal here on Friday. “It was, I think I want to call it, Olympic pressure, going out there the first time, hitting that Olympic ice and feeling the atmosphere, it was like, I didn’t expect it to be so much.
“I mentioned earlier in the week that it took me a little while to understand what really happened, but now that I understand it, I took a different approach today. Really, just take things nice and calm, nice and slow, just relax. Then really just push the autopilot button and just let it cruise.”
An Olympic rookie, he is so much better off having gone through the team experience, which left him with “an incredible feeling,” he said Sunday night.
Now it was 48 hours later, and Malinin was on his own in the individual men’s event. On his own and back to his old self, the skater who has won four consecutive U.S. championships and the last two world titles.
His score? 108.16 points, a healthy five points ahead of Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, who had 103.07. With a long program likely packed with his record-breaking seven quads, Malinin is back to being the strong favorite to win the gold medal Friday night. How things have changed for him since his shaky short program in the team event over the weekend.
“I definitely feel like I’ve reached where I want to be for the individual event, and just take a refresh and just nice and slow and calm for that free skate program. … and just let everything happen naturally.”
He now has more free time than he has had all week, with three days off between the short program and the long program (free skate). Asked how he is resting in his spare time, Malinin delightfully subtracted a couple years off his age.
“What would any teenager really do?” he replied with a smile. “I’m not really a teenager, but I feel like one a lot of the time, you know, just watching funny videos or funny fails, like video games and, you know, enjoying the Olympic Village. It’s such a cool place. They have their own gaming room as well. So I go there.”
This is the Malinin the skating world has come to know, a funny, laid back young man who loves to chat, almost always smiles and has the confidence to know how he’ll handle what’s next. For example, after the team competition ended Sunday, he predicted that nail-biter “really set me up for the individual event.”
Turns out he knew exactly what he was talking about.
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