"Today at 2 p.m., the moment I'd been waiting for since Saturday finally arrived: the men's individual Olympic figure skating short program, where Team USA's "Quad God" Ilia Malinin and Team Japan's Yuma Kagiyama would first face off for Olympic gold. Would Malinin finally attempt his quadruple axel?! Would Kagiyama deliver another jaw-dropping short program that would blow Malinin's score out of the water?! Would any of these men deliver a performance so beautiful that I'm brought to tears?! All that and more below."
"Kagiyama and Malinin are the two best male figure skaters in the world, no contest. Malinin has earned the nickname the "Quad God" because not only does he perform the most quad jumps, he's also the only figure skater in the world to ever land a quadruple axel-the sport's most difficult jump, which requires 4 1/2 turns in the air-in competition. 1984 Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton said the first time he saw a video of Malinin's quad axel, he thought it was AI."
Ilia Malinin and Yuma Kagiyama are presented as the two top male figure skaters contending for Olympic gold. Malinin is renowned for performing the most quadruple jumps and remains the only skater to land a quadruple axel in competition. Malinin also performs backflips, a move that regained legality in figure skating in 2024, though judges award minimal points for them. Kagiyama is described as having flawless execution and exceptionally crisp short programs with perfectly controlled jumps. The rivalry centers on technical difficulty versus pristine execution and has elevated expectations for emotionally powerful performances in the Olympic short program.
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