Winter Olympics: Ilia Malinin misses podium in figure skating shock; Shaidorov takes gold – as it happened
Shaidorov’s win should be celebrated.He skated brilliantly.He may be Malinin’s rival for years to come.But it’ll be impossible to remember this event as anything other than a catastrophe for the world’s best skater over the past three years by a wide margin.The flip side is that Malinin came through in the team event, which means several US skaters will leave Italy with gold medals.
That may be of little consolation at the moment.No other sporting event has the drama of the Olympics.Not the World Cup, where the players all immediately turn around and return to lucrative and high-profile professional careers.Only here.When it goes well, it’s enthralling.
In this case, it’s heartbreaking.Thanks for following along.Now let’s go figure out what happened in curling, which has suddenly turned into pro wrestling …291.58 Shaidorov (Kazakhstan) 280.06 Kagiyama (Japan) 274.
90 Sato (Japan) 273.92 Cha (South Korea) 273.78 Gogolev (Canada) 271.21 Gumennik (Neutral) 269.27 Fa (France) 264.
49 Malinin (USA) 263.71 Grassl (Italy) 260.27 Egadze (Georgia) 259.94 Aymoz (France) 259.06 Torgashev (USA) 246.
88 Miura (Japan) 246.64 Britschgi (Switzerland) 243.18 Rizzo (Italy) 236.82 Selevko (Estonia) 229.08 Jin (China) 226.
46 Vasiljevs (Latvia) 224.17 Marsak (Ukraine) 223.36 Naumov (USA) 222.25 Samoilov (Poland) 219.06 Carrillo (Mexico) 214.
33 Li (Chinese Taipei) 202,38 Hagara (Slovakia)Malinin immediately chats with NBC and says he felt ready,Maybe too confident, he says,“I think it was definitely mental,” Malinin says when asked if it was physical or mental,He says the Olympics are just different.
What was his first thought when the music ended?“I blew it!” Malinin says with a smile.He plans to continue and learn from this.He’s still young.In the kiss and cry, Malinin is complaining that he should’ve gone to the last Olympics, which would’ve prepared him for this moment.Gold to Mikhail Shaidorov.
Japan takes silver and bronze – Kagiyama and Sato.This picture says it all.Before the Olympics, I saw someone giving odds of -10000 for Malinin to medal.Imagine if you had bet on him to miss out.Malinin is beside himself as he finishes.
A gold is mathematically impossible.A silver is almost certainly out of the question.He lands the backflip, at least.But this is heartbreaking.He lands a quad toe/triple flip.
One more big combo – no, it’s just a double salchow, and he falls on THAT!This is an absolute disaster.That has to be it, then.No quad axel.No seven-quad showing.No gold medal.
Quad lutz … NO.He falls!Malinin has three more quads planned, and they’re all in combination.He has basically given away more than 20 points so far.Malinin rebounds with a quad lutz that’s absolutely fine.Quad loop becomes a double loop.
Uh oh.First up: Quad flip.No problem.Next: Quad axel if he so chooses.Nope – single axel.
Here we go … and I’ll update frequently during this skate.Kagiyama gets a 176.99 and holds on to the podium.He’s behind Shaidorov but ahead of Sato, so that’s at least a bronze.It’ll be a silver if Malinin does extremely poorly.
The Malinin dilemma …Malinin could play it safe and take the gold medal.Or he could go out and land a quad axel as one of seven quads.Which would you do?As I said many, many hours ago, you really hate to see someone look less than their best in the Olympics.But Kagiyama was always the underdog, and he has the consolation prize of knowing he beat Malinin in the team event short program.His finish is dazzling.
He’s a fun skater to watch.But his technical score is 92.83, more than 20 behind Shaidorov.Does Sato have a chance to finish ahead of his fellow Japanese skater?Kagiyama two-foots the landing on his last quad.His next two jumping passes are fine, but he’s going to struggle to get ahead of Shaidorov, let alone put pressure on Malinin.
Yuma Kagiyama opens with a quad salchow, but he steps out of the landing and loses some points.Next is a quad flip, and he falls.Can he rebound? He lands the quad-double combination, then a triple axel-double axel.Looking ahead: Fugiyama has four quads planned.One is a combo.
The music is Turandot: Christopher Tin Finale,Fa’s score is 166,72,He’s down to sixth and will finish no higher than eighth,Here we go … final two skaters …Fa’s step sequences are breathtaking, as are his spins.
He lands a backflip.But he had to land the jumps.Continuing with Fa: He does well on a quad-triple combination, then again puts a hand down on a quad salchow.He’s skating for pride at this point.Fa falls on his first jump, a quad lutz.
It’s a hard landing, and he winces.Next, a quad toeloop, and he has to put a hand down to stay up.Shaidorov is probably on the podium now.Let’s review …After the short program, Malinin had 108.16, and Kagiyama had 103.
07.But the next skater up, Adam Siao Him Fa of France, was right there with a 102.55.A good skate keeps him on the podium.A great skate means he could win if Malinin and Kagiyama are less than perfect.
He’ll skate to some Philip Glass.After review, Grassl’s technical score drops under 90.He ends up with a 170.25 and drops to sixth overall.Grassl has three quads planned to start, but he has a clumsy landing on the first and may have underrotated.
That’s a negative execution score already, and we’ll see what the review says.The next two quads are sharp.A triple axel-triple toe combo is a bit wobbly.He’ll have to nail this triple axel-double axel-double axel pass.And he does
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