Singles, Men

The men’s singles figure skating event at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games was held on 10 and 13 February at the Milano Ice Skating Arena. It featured 29 athletes from 21 nations and delivered one of the most unpredictable outcomes of the entire figure skating program.

Entering the Games, the spotlight was firmly on two-time World Champion (2024, 2025) Ilia Malinin of the United States, making his Olympic début and widely known as the “Quad God” for his remarkable arsenal of quadruple jumps. Yuma Kagiyama of Japan – the singles gold medalist at the 2020 Youth Olympic Winter Games and silver medalist at Beijing 2022 – was well positioned to challenge should Malinin falter. Also in the mix was France’s Adam Siao Him Fa, a 2022 Olympian, 2024 World Championships bronze medalist, and two-time European Champion (2023, 2024). Another skater drawing attention was Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaydorov, who had emerged as a rising contender after capturing the silver medal at the 2025 World Championships.

Malinin delivered a commanding performance in the short program, landing a quad flip and a quad Lutz-triple toe loop combination, along with a strong triple Axel, scoring 108.16 points – five points ahead of the field – and positioning himself as the clear gold-medal favourite heading into the free skate. Kagiyama finished second with 103.07 points, while Siao Him Fa placed third with 102.55 points, keeping the medal race tight behind Malinin. Italy’s own Daniel Grassl was in fourth, followed by Shaydorov, who was more than 15 points behind the leader.

It was clear heading into the free skate that, provided Malinin stayed on his feet, the real battle would be for the silver and bronze medals. But he did not, and his program quickly unravelled, with two falls – including on a quad Axel attempt – and additional errors on other jumping passes. The mistakes disrupted both his technical score and program flow, and several of his elements received negative grades of execution.

In one of the biggest surprises of the Games, Shaydorov delivered the skate of his life, scoring 198.64 points to win Olympic gold (291.58 points overall) and becoming the first Olympic figure skating champion from Kazakhstan. Japan enjoyed a strong showing, with Kagiyama taking silver and teammate Shun Sato earning bronze. Canadian Stephen Gogolev, 10th after the short program, produced a personal-best free skate score by almost 15 points and set a personal best combined total by 18+ points; his performance placed him second in the free skate, ahead of Sato (third) and Kagiyama (sixth), and fifth overall.

Malinin arrived at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games widely expected to claim the men’s singles title, but despite finishing eighth, he still left with a gold medal from the team competition. After the singles event, he demonstrated remarkable sportsmanship, offering heartfelt congratulations to gold medalist Shaydorov and saying, “You deserved it,” in what became the hug seen around the world. For his compassion and grace in defeat, Malinin received the IOC’s Fair Play Award for Milano-Cortina 2026 and widespread admiration. He later acknowledged that the Olympic pressure had been greater than he had anticipated.

Never thinking he would skate and compete again after the deaths of his parents in the American Airlines Flight 5342 tragedy above Washington, DC (USA) on 29 January 2025, [Maxim Naumov](() finished 20th overall and delivered a season-best short program in his Olympic début, creating one of the event’s most emotional moments when he held a photo in the kiss-and-cry of his parents, the 1994 World Champions and two-time Olympians (1992, 1994) Yevgeniya Shishkova and Vadim Naumov.