"American figure skating sensation Ilia Malinin fell twice in a disastrous free skate that sent him tumbling all the way off the podium at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday night, allowing Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan to claim a stunning gold medal. The self-styled Quad God, who led by a comfortable margin after the short program, merely had to deliver a mediocre performance to add individual gold to his team gold medal."
"Instead, the 21-year-old Malinin was trying to fight back tears after one of the worst nights of his career, one that left a star-packed crowd inside Milano Ice Arena sitting in stunned silence. I blew it, Malinin said. That's honestly the first thing that came to my mind. 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 fell all the way to eighth place. He finished with 264.49 points, ending a two-plus year unbeaten streak that covered 14 full competitions, including two consecutive world championships that he won with ease. Honestly, yeah, I was not expecting that, he said. I felt going into this competition I was so ready. I just felt ready going on that ice. I think maybe that might have been the reason, is I was too confident it was going to go well."
Ilia Malinin fell twice in the free skate at the Milan Cortina Olympics and dropped from podium contention to finish eighth. Mikhail Shaidorov scored a career-best 291.58 points to win Kazakhstan’s first gold medal of the Winter Games. Yuma Kagiyama took silver and Shun Sato earned bronze. Malinin had entered the event leading after the short program and had helped the United States win team gold, but pressure and overconfidence contributed to an unusually poor individual performance. Malinin’s loss ended a two-plus-year unbeaten streak covering 14 competitions, including two consecutive world championships.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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