2026 Winter Olympics Men’s Short Program Recap
The 2026 Winter Olympics have been nothing short of outstanding thus far, especially in the world of figure skating. The men’s short program was held tonight in Milano Cortina, with six men skaters taking the ice for the race to Gold. The men’s short program will feature USA skater Ilia Malinin and Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama.
During the team event Saturday night, Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama was flawless in his program and beat Ilia Malinin in the short program, earning 108.67 points. But that was not the case in the short program Tuesday night. Malinin came to compete and is now at the top of the standings coming into Friday’s free skate.
Men’s Short Program Recap
Ilia Malinin, known as the “Quad God,” performed a flawless short program, delivering a big quad flip and landing a perfect triple axel at the start. Following up with a quad lutz-triple toe loop combination that scored more than 22 points by itself. Ending with By the time he landed the backflip and his signature “raspberry twist.”
Malinin scored 108.16 in the short program. Malinin’s performance on Tuesday redeemed what was only a mediocre performance by his own standards in the team’s short program a week ago.USA teammates Andrew Torgashev scored 88.94 and Maxim Naumov 85.65 at the bottom of the short program standings.
At the top of the short program standings are Ilia Malinin in first with 108.16 points, followed by Yuma Kagiyama with 103.07 points, and in third place is Adam Siao Him Fa of France with 102.55 points.In Yuma Kagiyama’s short program, he lost an edge on the Triple Axel that cost him in his point reduction.
He is still a flawless skater and Ilia’s biggest competitor in men’s figure skating. The top 24 skaters in the event move on to Friday’s finals. The free skate program will be filled with excitement for these skaters, with little margin for error to win Gold.
Friday Night Will Determine Gold
The men will have a few days off until Friday to regroup and practice for the upcoming free skate. Amid the men’s short program hype, can Yuma, who is currently in 2nd place behind Ilia, come back and win Gold for Japan? Or will Ilia blow it away and run away with Gold?
