medal

President Trump honored two storied military veterans during his State of the Union address, including 100-year-old veteran Royce Williams of Escondido, who survived what is believed to be the longest dog fight in military history.

The former Navy fighter pilot, who was seated next to First Lady Melania Trump in the Capitol during the president’s address Tuesday night, flew more than 220 missions in World War II as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

Trump called Williams “a living legend” before describing his war-time heroics.

“In the skies over Korea in 1952, Royce was in the dogfight of a lifetime, a legendary dogfight,” Trump said. “Flying through blizzard conditions, his squadron was ambushed by seven Soviet fighter planes.”

Despite being outnumbered, Williams took down four of the jet fighters as his plane was hit more than 260 times and he was severely injured.

The incident was kept confidential because the Soviet Union was not officially a combatant in the Korean conflict, and American officials feared that if the air battle became known, it could compel the Soviets to formally enter the war.

Williams didn’t speak about the details of the encounter — even with family members — until records about the dogfight were declassified in 2002.

“His story was secret for over 50 years. He didn’t even want to tell his wife, but the legend grew and grew,” Trump said. “Tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves.”

Trump then announced that Williams would receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration. Melania Trump placed the blue-ribboned medal around his neck.

Williams was the guest of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall), a fellow veteran.

“My friend, constituent, and lifelong hero Royce Williams is a Top Gun pilot like no other, an American hero for all time, and now, a recipient of the highest honor in the land,” Issa said in a statement. “It was many years in the making, but it is my honor to have fought all these years for Royce to gain a recognition that he has not sought, but so richly deserves.”

Trump also announced that the Medal of Honor would be awarded to Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, an Army helicopter pilot who was gravely wounded in the 2026 raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“While preparing to land, enemy machine guns fired from every angle, and Eric was hit very badly in the leg and hip. One bullet after another, he observed four agonizing shots shredding his leg into numerous pieces,” Trump said.

Despite the gunshot wounds to his legs, with blood flowing through the helicopter he was piloting, “Eric maneuvered his helicopter with all of those lives and souls to face the enemy and let his gunners eliminate the threat, turn the helicopter around so the gunners could take care of business, saving the lives of his fellow warriors from what could have been a catastrophic crash deep in enemy territory,” Trump said.

Trump added, “Chief Warrant Officer Slover is still recovering from his serious wounds, but I’m thrilled to say that he is here tonight with his wife, Amy. Eric and Amy, come on in.”

Slover, with the aid of a walker, entered the gallery. “In recognition of Eric’s actions above and beyond the call of duty,” Trump said, “I would now like to ask Gen. Jonathan Braga to present Chief Warrant Officer Slover with our nation’s highest military award.”

Trump added that he too hopes to one day receive a Medal of Honor.

“But I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself,” Trump said. “But if they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday.”

President Trump on Tuesday awarded Team USA’s hockey goalie Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

The American team won the Olympic gold medal on Sunday, the first time in 46 years, on the anniversary of the team’s legendary triumph over the USSR, known as the “Miracle on Ice.” They won in a 2-1 overtime game against Canada, with Hellebuyck’s performance widely lauded throughout the tournament. He received credit for the second assist on the tournament-winning goal.

“I just want to say a … very big congratulations to Team USA,” Trump said in the opening moments of his speech, adding that he asked team members to vote on awarding the medal to Hellebuyck. “I just want to tell you that the members of this great hockey squad will be very happy to hear based on their vote and my vote — and in this case, my vote was more important — that I will soon be presenting Connor with our highest civilian honor.”

Hellebuyck, 32, plays for the National Hockey League’s Winnipeg Jets.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom has previously been awarded to politicians, religious leaders, artists, fashion designers and others who have made significant contributions to American society. Prior athletes who have received the honor include soccer legend Lionel Messi, former Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson and Olympians Katie Ledecky, Simone Biles and Megan Rapinoe.

The men’s team visited the White House earlier Tuesday and several members attended the State of the Union address.

The team has been a source of controversy for the administration after FBI Director Kash Patel was seen chugging beer in their locker room after their victory in the midst of multiple law-enforcement emergencies, including Americans trapped in Mexico in the aftermath of the killing of Mexico’s most powerful cartel leader, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes.

In video posted on social media, Patel appears to hold out a phone in the locker room as Trump invites the team to the White House and says he will also have to invite the U.S. women’s hockey team, which also won a gold medal, or “be impeached.”

During his State of the Union address, the president claimed that the women’s team would be visiting the White House “very soon.” The team earlier announced that it had turned down the White House’s invitation this week.

“We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal-winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,” the team said in a statement. “Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate. They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.”

Rapper-turned-Olympian patron Flavor Flav invited them to party with him and with other Olympic athletes in Las Vegas instead.

Team GB face an uphill task to win an Olympic medal in the four-man bobsleigh as they sit seventh at the halfway point.

Pilot Brad Hall had showcased why the British team are medal contenders in Cortina with a brilliant first run of 54.39 seconds, which left them in third place.

But they dropped off the pace in the second, clocking 55.04secs – the 12th-quickest time in heat two – to lose four places in the standings before Sunday’s medal-deciding heats.

The three German teams remain the ones to beat and they occupy the top three spots with Johannes Lochner, who won two-man gold earlier this week, leading the charge with an overall time of 1:48:61.

There was a long delay to competition at the Cortina sliding track after Austria suffered a crash during heat two, with one of the athletes treated for a lengthy period on the ice before being stretchered off.

Action resumed after about a 20-minute delay but, with the track now slower because of the rising temperature, the British team were unable to find the speed of their first run and currently sit on 1:49:43.

More to follow.

MILAN — She flipped her hair. She shrugged. She dusted her hands off.

Alysa Liu makes winning an Olympic gold medal look easy.

The 20-year-old became the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic singles title since 2002, electrifying the crowd at Milano Ice Skating Arena with her “MacArthur Park” program Thursday and overtaking Japanese rivals Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai, who won second and third, respectively.

Liu scored a monster 150.20 points in her free skate, the highest mark for a women’s free skate all season in international competition to win by a total of 1.89 points. Her choreographer Massimo Scali’s jaw dropped when he heard the score read in Italian. A beat later when the screen caught up to the public address announcement in the stadium, Liu nodded confidently and cracked a subtle smirk.

American gold medalist Alysa Liu hugs Japanese bronze medalist Ami Nakai after their final scores were revealed at the Winter Olympics on Thursday in Milan.

(Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

She doesn’t care about the scores.

Liu, who grew up in Oakland, has floated through her second Olympics as if she had not a single care in the world. A two-year retirement during which she climbed Mt. Everest, got her driver’s license and started college at UCLA made skating feel inconsequential. Now so unbothered, Liu spent part of her six-minute warmup cheering on teammate Amber Glenn in the leader’s chair. Minutes before taking the ice, Liu snapped a selfie with her coaches. She gives her coaches a high-five right before taking her starting position.

“She’s not like us,” her coach Phillip Diguglielmo said. “The rest of us here would be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m nervous. Oh, I can’t do this. I have a million voices in my head.’ She has one voice in her head, and it says, ‘I got this.’”

The only emotions Liu felt during her program were “calm, happy and confident.” When she sees the faces in the crowd smile, Liu said she can’t help but smile, too. And there was a lot of smiling. Her Donna Summer disco program had fans clapping within the first minute. Diguglielmo and Scali held their hands overhead to join the roar. Liu’s pre-program message to the crowd on the video board was “Y’all better turn up!”

Liu, who won the 2025 world championship with the same crowd-pleasing program, returned to the sport in 2024 with the sole objective of sharing her art. She wanted to make as many programs as possible. Winning never seemed to matter. With the gold medal hanging around her neck, Liu stopped short of saying she even wanted it. She surely didn’t need it, she said.

“What I needed was the stage,” Liu said. “And I got that.”

Once Liu processed the final scores, she rose to her feet and turned toward Nakai, clapping for the 17-year-old. Nakai, skating in her first Olympics, was shocked. She held up three fingers to Liu, asking if she had finished on the podium. Overjoyed, they hugged. Liu picked Nakai, who had entered the free skate in first place, up off the ground.

Sakamoto was less than a point ahead of Liu entering Thursday’s free skate, but small mistakes from the three-time world champion, in addition to Liu’s strong technique and infectious energy made Liu the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic gold medal since Sarah Hughes in 2002. The United States’ 20-year drought without a medal — since Sasha Cohen took silver in 2006 — was the country’s longest.

Liu held her palms up in disbelief after finishing the program of her life that put her in the lead with two competitors remaining. She leaned into the camera and pointed to the piercing on the inside of her upper lip. She did it herself.

With blond horizontal stripes dyed in her dark brown hair, bold black eyeliner and the smiley lip piercing, Liu has cut an alternative path to the top of a sport that long valued a specific kind of femininity. But the slick back bun, classical music and balletic dress was not Liu’s brand.

Her brand is joy.

And now as just the second figure skater in history to win two Olympic gold medals at the same Olympic Games — joining U.S. star Nathan Chen — Liu has the stage, and the attention, to display her joy for the next generation of athletes.

“People will be able to see how she approaches the sport now versus before and see how much more successful it is now in a healthy way,” Glenn said. “And I’m hoping people can really learn from that.”

Glenn got redemption after the short program, putting up a season’s best 147.52 during her free skate that vaulted her from 13th to fifth with a 214.91 total score. The only blemish was when Glenn put one hand down on her final jump — the same triple loop that cost her in her short program. But as she held one leg behind her during a spiral in her last sequence, Glenn smiled as she looked into the crowd. After the program, she whipped her fist through the air triumphantly.

The performance put a positive punctuation mark on Glenn’s winding Olympic journey. She has faced intense scrutiny at the Games. The same pressure that consumed Glenn and teammate Ilia Malinin could not even touch Liu’s glowing aura.

When asked Thursday if she felt any “Olympic pressure,” Liu smiled.

“You would have to explain what Olympic pressure is,” she said.

Then she bounced away, the gold medal around her neck blending perfectly with her gold dress.

Alina Muller repeats history from Sochi in 2014, scoring an overtime winner as Switzerland beat Sweden 2-1 to claim bronze in the women’s ice hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Muller scored the winner 12 years ago as a 15-year-old against the same opponents in a 4-3 victory to win the bronze medal.

WATCH MORE: Winter Olympics Video

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Great Britain’s women’s team are in a similarly precarious position.

The inexperienced rink – with only Jen Dodds surviving from the 2022 gold-medal winning team – finished sixth in last year’s World Championships and were some way short of their best against the US, with opportunities missed and mistakes made.

It looked for all the world like their chances were gone, trailing 7-6 going into the final end, and without the hammer.

However, Rebecca Morrison executed a sensational double takeout with her final throw and the Americans faltered under pressure, botching their effort to hand the British rink an implausible 8-7 triumph.

The Scottish quartet still need to win their final two games and hope for favours elsewhere if they are to salvage a place in the medal matches.

The next hurdle is a meeting with bottom-of-the-table Japan later on Wednesday (18:05 GMT) before they face second-bottom Italy on Thursday (13:05).

“There was a lot at stake but we just need to keep believing,” Morrison told BBC Sport. “We were up against it but we’re here to fight and that’s what we did.”

MILAN — After a one-hour on-ice training session and on the way to yet another interview, Isabeau Levito has one big problem on her mind.

One of the plants in the U.S. figure skater’s room has started growing mold. She needs to figure out how to wrangle it.

“That’s our task of the day,” Levito said Monday.

Nevermind that the biggest competition of her life was starting in about 24 hours.

Isabeau Levito competes during the free skating competition at the U.S. figure skating championships on Jan. 9 in St. Louis.

(Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)

Levito and the United States’ “Blade Angels” are trying to stay calm under pressure at the Olympics, where chaos has reigned at Milano Ice Skating Arena.

The United States was expected to dominate figure skating in Milan, but has yet to win a gold medal in an individual event entering Tuesday’s women’s short program. A supposed sure-fire gold medal disappeared in stunning fashion with Ilia Malinin’s eighth-place collapse. Three-time reigning world ice dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates settled for a “bittersweet” silver that was marred by judging controversies.

But the talent and depth on what is likely the best U.S. women’s Olympic team in decades could help end a 20-year Olympic medal drought in women’s singles skating. The last U.S. woman to stand on an Olympic podium for an individual event was Sasha Cohen in 2006. Sarah Hughes’ 2002 gold medal was the last for the United States in women’s singles.

Alysa Liu has already ended one skid. The reigning world champion was the first U.S. woman to win the world title since 2006. With blonde horizontal stripes dyed into her black hair and a piercing in her upper lip, the 20-year-old Liu is putting an alternative spin on figure skating.

Three-time national champion Amber Glenn combines power in her triple axel with emotion on the ice.

Levito, the 2024 world silver medalist, is the classic balletic skater who packs a humorous punch behind her teenage smile.

In a sport that once pitted young women against each other to fit a singular “ice princess” mold, the “Blade Angels” find their strength in their diversity.

“I really like that we’re all so different,” Levito said. “We have our own strengths and our own personalities and our own ways we want to look and appear. … We all have the same passion for the sport and have very aligned goals of wanting to do our best, and once we do that, we’re all happy, regardless of who beat who.”

NBC announcing team Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir dubbed the trio of medal contenders “the big three,” but the skaters workshopped their own nickname after nationals. They nixed “Babes of Glory” and “Powerpuff Girls” for copyright concerns. Their final choice was a mashup of “Blades of Glory” and “Charlie’s Angels.” If you like it, credit Liu.

“If people don’t like it,” Liu said, “don’t say I made it.”

Liu and Glenn have already won a gold medal in Milan, helping the United States win the team event in dramatic fashion. But with the two events spaced more than one week apart, “being in a high-pressure atmosphere for so long takes its toll,” Glenn said.

The 26-year-old has faced additional challenges on social media at the Games. She had to resolve potential copyright issues concerning her free skate music and received threats for comments she made during a news conference when asked about President Trump’s policies regarding the LGBTQ+ community. Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, encouraged people in the queer community to “stay strong during these hard times,” refusing to avoid political conversations because “politics affect us all.”

American Amber Glenn competes during the team skate at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Feb. 8.

(Natacha Pisarenko / Associated Press)

While she said Monday she doesn’t regret the comments, she has also had to take a break from social media to focus on her remaining competitions at the Olympics.

“I’m happy to do what I do and stand for what I stand for,” Glenn said. “But it has been —”

She paused.

“Complicated.”

Not only are the Olympic Games the largest stage for many sports and a dream that begins from childhood, but the spotlight has only increased with social media in recent years, Glenn said. Amid the pressure, she tries to lean on her teammates and embody the advice of U.S. figure skating alumni who tell her simply “enjoy it.”

“Four years ago, I could never have imagined even making it here,” Glenn said. “To just be here is a privilege that I don’t take lightly, and I need to remind myself of that and to just really soak in the experience, not just the results.”

Isabeau Levito skates during the U.S. figure skating championships on Jan. 11 in St. Louis.

(Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)

To reset after the team competition, the “Angels” went with the pairs skaters — whose competition started one week after the team event wrapped — to train at a U.S. facility in Bergamo, about a 50-minute drive outside of Milan. The training sessions are longer than what’s available at the competition venue, said Levito, who only took two training sessions in Milan before Tuesday’s short program.

The last U.S. figure skater to take Olympic ice, Levito has passed her time at the Games in the Olympic village. After making the Olympic team, the New Jersey native was most excited about the village. To her, it was going to be like “a magic kingdom,” she said before the Games.

It’s lived up to every expectation. She walks by the Olympic rings every morning. She and her teammates lounged in front of the TV watching the pairs competition Sunday and Glenn ordered ramen. Levito and U.S. ice dancer Christina Carreira named the adopted plants in their shared room Christabeau and Isatina. Levito is loving the experience so much that she won’t even harp on the fact that she briefly battled food poisoning.

She felt “horrible” off the ice, but it didn’t affect her training.

“When I was skating,” Levito said, “I flipped a switch in my head.”

She’ll need to switch it again Tuesday.

Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, Norway’s king of cross-country skiing, became the Winter Olympics’ outright most successful athlete with a record ninth gold medal.

Klaebo led his nation to the top of the podium in the men’s 4×7.5km relay – alongside team-mates Emil Iversen, Martin Loewstroem Nyenget and Einar Hedegart – for his fourth title of the Milan-Cortina Games.

At 29 years old, it adds to the three golds he won in Pyeongchang in 2018 and two in Beijing four years later, while he is also a 15-time world champion.

His medal haul could yet grow further, with two further opportunities for gold in the men’s team sprint on Wednesday and 50km classic race on Saturday.

In Sunday’s relay, the Norwegian quartet won by a 22.2 second margin, with France and hosts Italy winning silver and bronze respectively.

With the Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026 in full swing, attention extends beyond the competition itself to a practical question: what is an Olympic medal actually worth?

The answer depends on how you define “worth.” There’s the literal value of the metal, the tax implications that could follow, and then the much bigger value that comes from status, visibility, and opportunity.

Are Olympic Gold Medals Actually Solid Gold?

Despite the name, Olympic gold medals are not solid gold. Even though the tradition of a solid gold medal was established in 1904, forging the medals 100% out of gold didn’t last long, as it became too costly after World War I. As a result, the top medal hasn’t been made of solid gold since the 1912 Olympic games.

Today, gold medals are primarily made of silver, with a relatively thin coating of pure gold on the surface. The exact specifications vary slightly, but the general formula has remained consistent. A modern Olympic gold medal typically contains 523 grams of sterling silver, with approximately six grams of gold plated on top. This allows it to look like gold and feel substantial, while also carrying enormous symbolic weight.

Silver medals are indeed solid, made of 525 grams of sterling silver. Bronze medals meanwhile contain no precious metals at all, typically containing 90 percent copper and other alloys, such as tin and zinc.

As a result, the true value of each medal comes more from the prestige of being a medalist and the opportunities it may offer than from the raw materials that comprise each medal.

What Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals Are Worth at Today’s Metal Prices

Metal prices fluctuate constantly, so any estimate is a snapshot in time. Using current pricing, gold is trading around $5,000 per troy ounce, and silver around $80 per troy ounce. Six grams of gold works out to be worth about $965 at current prices, while the silver portion of a gold medal, about 523 grams, is worth about $1,345. Added together, the raw metal value of a gold medal currently lands around $2,310.

Silver medals, made of 525 grams of sterling silver, would be worth around $1,350, while bronze medals are worth far less from a materials standpoint. With copper currently priced at about $0.37 per ounce and a bronze medal comprising 495 grams of copper, the third-place medal would be worth less than $7 at today’s prices.

Do Olympic Athletes Have To Pay Taxes on Their Medals?

Fortunately for U.S. athletes, the tax picture has changed over time. In the past, medals and associated prize money were treated as taxable income, meaning athletes could owe federal taxes on both the cash bonuses and the fair market value of the medal itself.

That shifted in 2016, when Congress passed the United States Appreciation for Olympians and Paralympians Act of 2016. The legislation allows most U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes to exclude medal-related prize money from federal income taxes if their overall income falls below a certain threshold. The intent was to prevent athletes, many of whom train for years with limited financial support, from being hit with tax bills simply for winning.

Why Medals Are Worth Far More Than the Raw Materials

If medals were only worth their metal content, they’d be impressive keepsakes, but not life-changing ones. The real value comes from what the medal represents and what it unlocks.

An Olympic medal can raise an athlete’s profile overnight, leading to endorsements, sponsorships, and paid appearances that weren’t on the table before. The impact often lasts well beyond competition, opening doors to coaching, leadership roles, and media opportunities long after the Games are over.

Those opportunities don’t look the same for every medalist—or arrive all at once. For some athletes, especially gold medalists, the exposure of winning on the sport’s biggest stage can translate quickly into major endorsement deals. For others, the payoff is more gradual, showing up as smaller sponsorships, speaking fees, or a clearer path into post-competition careers built on recognition and trust.

Winning multiple medals can also amplify the effect, creating a sustained spotlight that brands and audiences tend to value more than a single podium finish.

While the metal in an Olympic medal may only be worth a modest sum, the visibility it brings can reshape an athlete’s earning potential in ways that far outlast the Games themselves—making its true value less about what it’s made of, and more about what it makes possible.

Brazil became the first South American country to win gold at the Winter Olympics with Lucas Pinheiro Braathen securing victory in the giant slalom event in Italy. At the press conference afterwards, Braathen said hearing Brazil’s national anthem was a proud moment after growing up watching its football team triumph.

MILAN — He popped the quad axel. He stumbled across the ice. He tried to hide the pained expression.

Ilia Malinin fell apart in the men’s free skate, tumbling from near lock to win the gold medal to eighth place after a disastrous performance Friday. After his music ended, Malinin covered his anguished face. He put his hands on his knees, shook his head in disbelief and scrunched his face, hoping to hold back the tears.

It was the first time since November 2023 that he hadn’t won a competition.

“I just thought that all I needed to do was go out there and trust the process that I’ve always been doing with every competition,” Malinin said with tear-stained cheeks. “But, of course, it’s not like any other competition. It’s the Olympics.”

American Ilia Malinin reacts after stumbling through the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics on Friday in Milan.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Malinin skated four times at the Milan-Cortina Games, helping the United States to a team gold medal with a clutch free skate that clinched the one-point win. But the 21-year-old had just one clean skate in his first Games experience. He explained his slow start during the team event as “Olympic nerves.”

There was no explaining away Friday’s flop.

“I think people only realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happen from the inside,” said Malinin, whose technical advantage was supposed to be insurmountable for his opponents. “It was really just something that overwhelmed me. I just felt like I had no control.”

After Malinin’s score was announced, Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov covered his mouth in shock. He was the new Olympic champion. Shaidorov claimed his country’s first Olympic gold in figure skating. His coach held his arm up like a boxing champion as a legion of Kazakh fans seated in the corner above the kiss-and-cry booth where skaters wait for their score waved their country’s teal and yellow flags. Malinin hugged him. He pointed to Shaidorov’s chest.

“You deserve it,” Malinin said.

Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama shook off several falls in his program to fight for his second consecutive Olympic silver. His countryman Shun Sato was in tears after learning he took the bronze.

Ilia Malinin’s father, Roman Skorniakov, reacts during his son’s performance at the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics on Friday in Milan.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The United States’ Andrew Torgashev finished 12th with his season’s best 259.06-point total. Maxim Naumov stumbled through several jumps in his free skate to finish 20th overall with a 223.36 point total. The 24-year-old who lost both parents in a plane crash last year earned a standing ovation from actor Jeff Goldblum, who was in the stands behind the judges.

As the groups progressed toward the medal contenders, the crowd filled Milano Ice Skating Arena to the brim. Fans in suites in the rafters leaned over glass panes to get a better look. Volunteers and arena workers stood at the top of the concourse with no open seats left to claim.

While rising to the top of the sport with his stunning jumps and crowd-pleasing backflip, Malinin said his mission was to boost the popularity of figure skating to get this kind of attention outside of just the Olympic stage.

But standing at the center of the ice as fans waved U.S. flags from every corner, Malinin, the “Quad God” who looked invincible just three months ago when he became the first person to land seven quadruple jumps in one program, felt scared.

“Especially going into that starting pose, I just felt like all the just traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head,” Malinin said. “It was just like so many negative thoughts that just flooded into there, and I just did not handle it.”

He started off the program with a strong quad flip. Then he bailed mid-air on his signature quad axel that he had yet to attempt in the Olympics. The crowd gasped. Panic started when Malinin downgraded a planned quadruple loop to a double two jumps later.

American Ilia Malinin falls while competing in the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Friday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Behind the boards, his father and coach, Roman Skorniakov covered his face. Coach Rafael Arutyunyan, who has worked with Malinin part-time since 2021, paced back and forth. He hit the padded boards for encouragement before Malinin lined up for a three-jump combination.

Malinin fell again.

The program couldn’t end soon enough just to allow the 21-year-old a chance to hide after years of being in the spotlight as the presumed next Olympic champion.

“Being the Olympic gold hopeful is really just a lot to deal with,” Malinin said, “especially for my age.”

Malinin’s free skate music includes self-narrated voiceovers telling the story of his personal journey growing in the sport. As it begins, he uncovers his face. His words echo over the speakers.“The only true wisdom,” Malinin says in the program, “is in knowing you know nothing.”

After this result, that couldn’t be more true.

USA’s Ilia Malinin, the red-hot favourite for men’s figure skating gold at Milan-Cortina 2026, falls twice as he misses out on a podium finish to give Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan the gold medal.

READ MORE: Shaidorov wins gold as ‘Quad God’ Malinin crumbles

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