'Quad God' Plays Big Role for Team USA Figure Skating

It seemed only fitting that Ilia Malinin was the first one to get his Olympic gold medal after the US successfully defended its team title by holding off the Japanese on Sunday night in the three-day competition at the Milan Cortina Games. After all, everything came down to him in the end. With the teams tied after seven of eight performances, Malinin calmly delivered for the Americans. The 21-year-old nicknamed the "Quad God" landed five quadruple jumps and scored 200.03 points for his free skate, atoning for a mediocre short program—at least by his lofty standards—one night earlier. That was enough to beat Japanese sensation Shun Sato, who followed him to the ice, hit a trio of quads of his own, but could only manage 194.86 points in finishing second, the AP reports.

The US finished with 69 points while Japan had 68, earning the silver medal for the second consecutive Olympics. "I was like, 'OK, I'm the deciding factor,'" Malinin said later, after the US got the medal ceremony it was denied at the Beijing Games, when Russian doping held up their awards for more than two years. "'I need to just, you know, do what I need to do.'" 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 come through for the Americans. Malinin opened with a big quad flip, opted for a safer triple axel over his quad, and overcame 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. Meanwhile, 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.