US takes gold in figure skating team event at Winter Olympics
Ilia Malinin put together an epic performance to help Team USA
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American Olympians have had a tough time getting onto the podium in the first two days of the 2026 Winter Olympics, but wrapped up Sunday with a gold medal.
U.S. figure skating took home the gold medal in the figure skating team event. Team USA had a total score of 69 points and edged Japan for the top spot by just one point. Italy finished with the bronze medal with 60 points.
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Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the figure skating ice dance team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
The Americans needed to finish near the top in ice dancing, pair skating, women’s singles skating and men’s singles skating. Madison Chock and Evan Bates crushed the ice dancing discipline, scoring a 133.23 and picking up the 10 points needed to start the day on top.
Danny O’Shea and Kam Ellie did enough to pick up one more point than they received in the qualifications. Though, the pair fell behind Japan’s Ryuichi Kihara and Riku Miura, Georgia’s Luka Berulava and Anastasiia Metelkina and Italy’s Niccolo Macii and Sara Conti.
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Ilia Malinin of the United States reacts to his scores after competing during the figure skating men’s team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Amber Glenn picked up eight points in the final round of the women’s single skating but finished behind Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto and Anastasiia Gubanova.
Ilia Malinin, nicknamed the “Quad God,” needed a nearly perfect routine in men’s single skating and he delivered on the biggest stage of his career thus far. He scored a 200.03 and got the 10 points needed to vault the U.S. into first place. Japan’s Shun Sato put the pressure on with his performance but only scored a 194.86.
It was the second gold medal for the U.S. on Sunday. Breezy Johnson took home the first earlier in the day in alpine skiing women’s downhill.
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the figure skating men’s team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
U.S. medal hopes in figure skating came down to one skater. Ilia Malinin was golden.
At the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Team USA won the first gold medal in figure skating after Malinin won the men’s event, besting Shun Sato of Japan.
MILAN — Two days and 11 skaters into figure skating’s team event, the United States’ gold-medal hopes hinged on one final skater.
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Ilia Malinin, who at only 21 years old had already earned a world championship and developed an ability to pull off tricks no other man in history had accomplished, had to catch himself on a stumble that drew gasps, then threw a backflip — his second in as many nights, and in Olympic history — that drew screams.
Then, he had to wait out the routine of Japan’s last entrant.
It was nail-biting, nerve-wracking theater that ended with all of the air sucked out of a once-raucous Milan Ice Skating Arena as Shun Sato’s final score was read through the stadium’s public-address system. When it fell well short of Malinin’s score, seven U.S. athletes who had competed in the team event hugged one another just feet from the ice.
The final score read U.S. 69, Japan 68. Italy secured the bronze with 60 points.
Malinin has earned his first career Olympic medal.
It was the first medal handed out in figure skating at these Games, and marked the second consecutive Olympics in which the U.S. won the event. To do it, the U.S. had to endure a two-day event that combined scores from four different disciplines during Saturday’s qualifying rounds, and four more competitions in Sunday’s final.
The U.S. used the same teams in most events — Madison Chock and Evan Bates participated in both rhythm and free dance; Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea competed in both days of pairs skating; and Malinin handled men’s singles. The only exception was women’s singles skating, in which Alysa Liu was used Saturday while Amber Glenn skated Sunday.
Glenn, the three-time reigning U.S. champion, said she felt “guilty” that her third-place finish had lost the U.S. lead in the penultimate competition Sunday and that she felt run down by training and unfamiliar with the team-event format.
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All of it had left the U.S. and Japan tied for first, with 59 points, entering Sunday’s final discipline, which began after 10 p.m. local time. If Malinin, the Fairfax, Virginia, native who was born for such a stage — his parents skated at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics — was nervous, it did not show as he bounded on his skates and pumped a fist on his way to the ice during his preskate introduction. He unzipped a Team USA jacket to reveal a sparkly, black top. Japan’s entrant, Sato, was more reserved.
Malinin might be figure skating’s biggest star, but he is not invincible. Even despite that backflip, his routine Saturday was only good enough for second behind Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama.
Malinin also was not perfect on Sunday. He needed to put both hands on the ice to steady himself after a shaky fall, but quickly upped the difficulty of his routine beyond anything his competitors could match by backflipping at center ice. He exited the routine, yelling toward fans. His score of 200.03 easily put him into first place, more than 20 points ahead of the second-place Italian skater. And it set the bar for what Japan needed to clear for a gold medal.
