‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin stumbles twice as Mikhail Shaidorov wins Winter Olympics gold
Milan: Rarely in the history of Olympic sports, whether summer or winter, has there been a fall like Ilia Malinin’s on the final night of men’s singles figure skating, when the ice skating prodigy known as the ‘Quadruple God’ stumbled twice and landed on the ice with his back first.
Malinin was the final competitor, leading the field of 24. Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, the skater seen as his only realistic rival for the gold medal, had fallen just minutes earlier.
This appeared to turn Malinin’s skating into a rite of passage; his main interest here would be performing his patented Quadruple Axel (first seen at the Olympics).
But after executing his planned quadruple axel move, the Quadruple God lost his balance on the landing while attempting a quadruple lutz once, fell on his backside, and then—apparently unable to regain his mental balance—fell again into the final sequence, a combination.
He finished eighth. The gold medal was taken by unheralded Kazakh Mikhail Shaidorov, who was fifth after the short skate two nights earlier. Kagiyami recovered despite his fall and won the silver medal, while his compatriot Shun Sato performed above his rank in short skating and received the bronze medal.
At the end of Ilia Malinin’s routine.Credit: access point
When Malinin’s failed routine was over, he shook his head, understanding how he had gotten into this situation and ruined it.
Shaidorov was as stunned as everyone else, sliding flawlessly and nailing every axel, toe loop and lutz (moves that resemble German auto parts).
The collective gasp at Malinin’s second fall was the realization that they had witnessed something extraordinary, that a skater who had revolutionized the sport with his aerial revolutions had fallen further than could be imagined.
