Ilia Malinin Secures Team USA Figure Skating Gold with a Backflip in 2026 Winter Olympics Team Event Nail-Biter
- - Ilia Malinin Secures Team USA Figure Skating Gold with a Backflip in 2026 Winter Olympics Team Event Nail-Biter
Rachel DeSantisFebruary 8, 2026 at 11:46 PM
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Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Feb. 8.
Jared C. Tilton/Getty
Team USA won a gold medal at the figure skating team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Feb. 8
Ilia Malinin, Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn, Madison Chock, Evan Bates, Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea all contributed to the win
The medal comes after Team USA's gold medal in the same event in 2022, which was marred by scandal
Gold looks good on Team USA!
The American figure skaters jumped, spun and backflipped their way to a gold medal in the figure skating team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Sunday, Feb. 8 at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
It was a group effort for Ilia Malinin, Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn, Madison Chock, Evan Bates, Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea, who all contributed to Team USA’s winning score of 68 via four events: ice dance, pair skating, women single skating and men single skating.
Team USA previously won the same event at Beijing in 2022 — but only after a scandal involving Russian skater Kamila Valieva, who tested positive during the Games for a banned substance. After a lengthy investigation, her team’s first-place finish was downgraded, and the U.S.’s second-place finish was bumped up to first. They eventually received their gold medals in Paris in 2024.
Ilia Malinin at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan on Feb. 7.
Joris Verwijst/BSR Agency/Getty
On the first of the two-night final, Chock, 33, and Bates, 36, kicked things off with a bang, notching the top spot on the ice dance leaderboard with 133.23 points.
Kam, 21, and O’Shea, 34, kept things moving the next night, earning a seventh-place finish (and seven team points) with 135.36. The two were overcome with emotion following their performance, with O’Shea yelling out with joy and Kam fighting tears.
Glenn, 26, was next, scoring 138.62, enough to earn her a third-place finish and eight team points. The athlete was visibly disappointed as she sat amongst her teammates and heard her score read aloud.
"I feel guilty. My team has done so well and my performance was lackluster," she told reporters, including PEOPLE, after her skate. "I scored lower than my median in what they were counting on, and I placed lower than what would have been expected... I made a few too many mistakes."
All eyes were on Malinin, 21, known by fans as the “Quad God,” heading into the men single skating round, as the U.S. and Japan were tied with 59 total team points each.
Though he stumbled toward the end of his routine, Mailin ultimately clinched the win for Team USA with help from his signature backflip, scoring 200.03.
"It's honestly just such an incredible, like raw feeling in this environment," he told reporters, including PEOPLE, after his qualifiers event on Feb. 7. "Once I do that backflip, everyone's like, screaming for joy and they're just out of control."
Amber Glenn competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Feb. 8, 2026.
Jamie Squire/Getty
Liu — who came out of retirement in 2024 — contributed, too, notching a second-place finish in the women single skating qualifier.
The medal marked the second of the Games for the U.S., following skier Breezy Johnson’s first-place finish in women’s downhill.
"We are always excited to take [to the] Olympic ice,” Chock said after her and Bates’ ice dance free dance on Feb. 7. “We knew what we had to do when we stepped on the ice and were prepared to do it."
O’Shea, meanwhile joked at a press conference that his strategy heading onto the ice was simply “to skate well.”
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. Watch the Milan Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, beginning Feb. 6, on NBC and Peacock.
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Source: “AOL Sports”
