Google released a new Doodle on Monday, 9 February, showing figure skating gold win at the Milan Cortina Olympics. In the head-to-head showdown on Sunday night, USA’s Ilia Malinin led the USA to gold by beating Japanese rival Shun Sato, securing gold for her country in Winter Olympics 2026.
After three days of intense competition, Japan bagged silver while the host nation Italy claimed bronze. Over the landmark victory, Malinin said, “We came here to do one job and we achieved it,” AFP reported. After gold title win in his first Olympics, the 21-year-old is set for the individual event.
Describing what was going in his mind moments before USA’s win, he said, “I came in and said I’m the deciding factor, I just need to go out there and test the ice again to see how it feels and prepare myself for the individual event.
Moving to the scoreboard, the Americans and the Japanese had been neck and neck with the United States finishing with 69 points and Japan scoring 68. For the first time in the team event, Italy secured a medal and finished with 60 score with Matteo Rizzo delivering one of the best free skates of his career.
Commending the team’s support and energy during the fierce clash, he added, “I knew it was going to be a tie-breaker… and it went exactly the way I wanted. I’m so thankful for that.” In the thrilling figure skating competition, Malinin’s impressive performance featured five quadruple jumps.
in a head-to-head showdown on Sunday night, helping the US defend its team figure skating gold medal by breaking a deadlock with Japan in the final session of the competition.
The 21-year-old nicknamed the “Quad God” landed five quadruple jumps and scored 200.03 points for his free skate, atoning for his mediocre short program — at least by his lofty standards — one night earlier. Sato followed him with three quads in his program, but he could only manage 194.86 points, leaving the Japanese with a second straight silver medal in the team event.
The US ended up on 69 points while Japan finished with 68. Matteo Rizzo delivered one of the best free skates of his career as Italy was trying to hold onto the bronze medal, allowing the host nation to finish third with 60 points.
Georgia wound up fourth with 56. It still has never medaled in any sport at the Winter Games.
The US had a five-point lead over Japan after two days of competition. But the advantage dwindled to nothing when world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara won the pairs free skate and Kaori Sakamoto won the women’s free skate earlier Sunday night.
Leave it to the best closer in the business to deliver for the Americans.
Malinin opened with a big quad flip, opted for a safer triple axel over his quad, and overcome a couple of mistakes along the way to finish with aplomb. The son of Olympic skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov ended with back-to-back combos, a quad toe-triple flip and a quad salchow-triple axel, leaving a crowd full of American and Japanese fans roaring in approval.
Sato did everything he could to give Japan a chance.
From his opening quad lutz to his finishing triple lutz, the Japanese star was nearly perfect, producing an easier but cleaner program than Malinin had earlier. He pumped his fist the moment his music ended, then had to wait to hear whether it was enough.
