U.S. star Malinin falls twice in free skate, giving Kazakhstan's Shaidorov improbable Olympic gold
CBC
Ilia Malinin of the United States failed to make the Olympic podium after a disastrous free program performance in the men's singles event at the Milano Cortina Games on Friday.
The 21-year-old American star fell twice, tumbling to eighth position overall.
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan claimed the gold medal while Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato won silver and bronze, respectively.
Canada's Stephen Gogolev posted the second-best score (186.37) with his performance, finishing fifth overall.
In a surprising final flight of free programs, Shaidorov won Kazakhstan’s first ever gold medal in figure skating, putting on the performance of a lifetime and scoring an all-time career high of 198.64 in the free program and 291.58 overall.
The 21-year-old who skated to Confessa, The Diva Dance by Dimash Qudaibergen came into the free programs in fifth place.
Malinin needed to do very little to win the gold medal, given his dominance over the sport and undefeated record over the past two seasons.
But Malinin struggled early on in the performance, failing to complete his quadruple axel and the falling twice halfway through the performance, losing momentum.
The 21-year-old has the world record for the free program with 238.24 points but only scored 156.33, with an overall score of 264.49 to finish in eight place.
"I blew it," Malinin told NBC.
"That's honestly the first thing that came to my mind. There's no way that just happened. I was preparing the whole season and was so confident in my program, so confident with everything. I have no words really."
Japan's Kagiyama defending his silver medal from Beijing 2022, even while appearing to struggle through his free program, including a fall on his quadruple flip.
Kagiyama scored 176.99 in the free program and 280.06 to hold onto second place while his teammate Shun scored 186.20 in the free program and 274.90 overall to move from ninth place to claim the bronze medal.
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