USA advances to Olympic team skating final, but Ilia Malinin stumbles

'Quad God' Ilia Malinin makes his Olympic debut

Ilia Malinin entered these Olympic Games as one of the heaviest gold medal favorites in any sport: he's the only man capable of landing the fiendishly difficult quad axel in a competition setting. Accordingly, hopes for Malinin were high as he made his Olympic debut in this team event. Japan had won two disciplines to Team USA's one when he took to the ice, but he was highly favored to even the scales and cruise to victory in the men's field.

It wasn't to be. Malinin landed all of his jumps (including a near-perfect quad flip) but didn't stick them with his usual verve. Two of his three jumping passes were found to be under-rotated, leading to heavy points deductions and a lower-than-usual score for Malinin's all-conquering short program. He wound up finishing ten full points behind Japan's Yuma Kagiyama—something that would've been unthinkable before the competition began.

The points difference was stark, and it didn't just come down to rotations. Kagiyama is an expressive and creative skater, and his engaging performance ultimately earned him serious artistic points with the judges. Malinin, by contrast, prefers a more athletic approach. When his jumps fail him, as they did in this team short program, his lack of artistry becomes a real problem...and Kagiyama took full advantage of that.

It's not all over for Malinin: he may yet skate in the team final, and if he does, his endurance (and sheer number of quad jumps) will likely crush Kagiyama's points tally. But it's telling to see Malinin's artistic failures judged so harshly on the Olympic stage. Men's skating has long felt like a jumping arms race; Kagiyama's high score feels like a deliberate, and much-needed, push toward a more artistic future.

What's next for Team USA

The team skating final will begin on Saturday with the ice dance long program, and conclude on Sunday, with long programs in the pairs, women's and men's disciplines. Five nations—the United States, Japan, Italy, Canada and Georgia—will participate. France, Great Britain, Korea, China and Poland have been eliminated from the competition.