SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Gods can fall. U.S. Olympic figure skater Ilia Malinin was widely expected to win gold in the men's event on Friday thanks to his quadruple jumps, but he didn't even make the podium. Malinin fell multiple times, didn't try his hardest jumps and finished eighth. NPR's Rachel Treisman was watching at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. Rachel, thanks so much for being with us.
RACHEL TREISMAN, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: He is a global phenomenon - just 21, hadn't lost a major competition since 2023. What was the mood like when he took the ice?
TREISMAN: I'll try to paint a picture. So Malinin was the very last skater of the entire night, and there was just this sense in the room that he would be the grand finale. He got the loudest applause of anyone just by skating out to do his warmups. All eyes were on him. The stands were super packed. There were Olympic greats in the room, like Nathan Chen and Simone Biles. And the question people around me were asking wasn't whether Malinin would win but, how would he do it? How many quad jumps would he do? And, of course, would he attempt and land the quad axel, which would be the first on Olympic ice?
SIMON: When did it all start going wrong?
TREISMAN: Pretty much immediately. Malinin's second planned jump out of seven was the quad axel, but he downgraded it midair to just a single axel. And it got harder to watch from there. He bailed on a couple of other jumps and fully fell twice. One of the jumps he did manage to land was a backflip, but, of course, that doesn't get you any points, just a lot of love from the crowd.
SIMON: And what was the reaction of the crowd?
TREISMAN: Well, the crowd started off so energized for his performance, and once he got started, it just totally felt like the wind had been knocked out of everyone. Some people around me had their phones out to film what was supposed to be this historic jump and then pretty quickly put their phones away. I feel like it took a moment for people to realize what they were seeing, and then when they did, the crowd suddenly got loud again, as if people in the stands were trying to boost Malinin up with their own energy - their own nervous energy in particular. But it didn't work, and at the end of the four minutes, Malinin just looked anguished as he walked off the ice.
SIMON: And what did this extraordinary young man say about what went wrong?
TREISMAN: Well, a lot of us asked him. So athletes typically talk to the press right after they skate, and just a few minutes later, I was standing in this crush of journalists, all eager to hear from him. And Malinin clearly hadn't had a second to process what had just happened. He was clearly still trying to understand. But he did blame the pressure he'd been under as the heavy favorite. And he said a lot of negative thoughts came flooding in as soon as he hit his starting pose.
SIMON: We should ask who won.
TREISMAN: So two Japanese skaters ended up on the podium. Yuma Kagiyama repeated his silver from 2022, and Shun Sato won bronze. But the real shocker was the first-place finisher, Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan. He wasn't expected to medal at all, though he was clearly a fan favorite. He landed a really clean skate with five quad jumps that put him in first place. There were still a handful of top-ranked skaters to follow him, including Malinin, so I don't think Shaidorov was expecting to stay on the top of the scoreboard, but all of the skaters after him fell. So we could see him watching in real time as he processed that he had won bronze, then silver and then somehow gold. And after Malinin got his score, he walked over to hug Shaidorov, who was just standing there in total shock with his hands on his face.
SIMON: Medals for women's figure skating and pairs figure skating are still ahead. More competitions this week. But this was Ilia Malinin's last chance at a medal this year, wasn't it?
TREISMAN: That's right. And it's important to note he will still leave these Olympics with a gold medal from last weekend's team event, which - I mean, ironically, his free skate helped the U.S. win. But, yeah, yesterday was his last chance at an individual medal. We may see him skate again at an exhibition event next weekend, but we'll have to see him in a future Olympic cycle if he wants to earn his individual medal.
SIMON: NPR's Rachel Treisman in Milan. Rachel, thanks so much for being with us.
TREISMAN: Of course. Thank you.
SIMON: And Rachel is writing a daily newsletter about what it's like to be at the Games in person. It's called Rachel Goes To The Games. You can subscribe to it at npr.org/wintergames. And you can check out Up First Winter Games, a new video podcast from the team that brings you Up First. Find it every afternoon at youtube.com/npr. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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