Malinin had come in for some criticism at these Games, particularly around his performance in the team event, in which he was outscored by Kagiyama in the short program before errors in the free skate – in which he had not originally been expected to compete – almost allowed Japan to scoop gold.
Reacting to the pressure, Malinin’s team took him out of the Olympic bubble to train 35 miles away in Bergamo before the men’s event as they hoped it would help him reset.
And his cleaned-up performance in the individual short program – finishing five points ahead of the field – seemed like that that of a man in no mood to lose his two-and-a-half-year unbeaten competition streak.
His lead into the free skate was ominous – this is where Malinin dominates. At the Grand Prix Final, he was third after the short but still finished 30 points clear of the field after the free, landing seven quads.
Usually, he has such an advantage because of a deadly combination of fearlessness and ability. His program for the free skate has a much higher technical score than any of his rivals, and judges will give extra credit for ambition while also rewarding with a higher component score.
But this was a timid routine. The quad axel subbed for a single, a quad loop reduced to a double. Dreams, turned to rubble.
On his quad salchow, he only executed a double, then fell. Reality hit, just like the ice.
Malinin’s free skate was the 15th best of the night. It earned just 156.33 points, more than 40 behind Shaidorov.
He performed a backflip for the crowd’s entertainment, but it seemed like a forlorn call to the good times of only last week.
In the team event he had also landed the first legal backflip at an Olympic Games since US champion Terry Kubicka in 1976 – after which it was banned for safety reasons.
Thanks in part to skaters like France’s Surya Bonaly – who performed the move illegally but successfully at Nagano 1998 – the backflip is now legal again.
Malinin became the first to land it at the Games on only one foot and did the flip again in the short program.
But really, none of that mattered. And after the scores came in, Malinin went straight to Shaidorov to congratulate him.
This is Kazakhstan’s first Winter Olympic gold medal since Lillehammer 1994, when Vladimir Smirnov won the men’s 50km cross-country skiing. That was 10 years before Shaidorov, 21, was born.
After a slight slip on the quad lutz, Shaidorov kept his head when all about were losing theirs and produced two clean quad techniques of his own.
All hail the new Quad God.
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