American figure skating sensation Ilia Malinin fell twice in a disastrous free skate that sent him tumbling out of the medals at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday night, clearing the way for Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan to claim a stunning gold medal. Malinin, who led by a comfortable margin after the short program, merely had to deliver a mediocre performance to add individual gold to the gold medal he won in the team event, the AP reports. Instead, the 21-year-old nicknamed the "Quad God" fought back tears after one of the worst nights of his career, a performance that left a star-packed crowd in Milano Ice Arena and Malinin in shock.
Shaidorov finished with a career-best 291.58 points to give his nation its first gold medal of the Winter Games, while Yuma Kagiyama earned his second consecutive Olympic silver medal and Japanese teammate Shun Sato took bronze. Then there was Malinin, who dropped all the way to eighth place. He finished with 264.49 points, ending an unbeaten streak of more than two years that covered 14 full competitions, including the past two world championships that he won with ease. Malinin said afterward that he "blew it" and that the failure was mental, per NBC Sports. "I felt so ready getting on that ice," he said. "Maybe I was too confident it was going to go well."
The Kazakhstan fans were slow to leave the arena, waving their national flags, per the Athletic. Shaidorov draped himself in one. Their winter Olympians had won only one gold medal before Friday, in men's 50km cross-country skiing in 1994 in Lillehammer. Malinin, the heavy favorite coming in, congratulated the winner with a handshake and embrace after failing to land his famed quadruple axel and botching several other jumps. "There's no way that just happened," he said.
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