'Quad God' Finishing 8th Stuns Olympics Fans as Ilia Malinin Struggles in Figure Skating Final

United States figure skater Ilia Malinin surprisingly finished at No. 8 in the men's singles competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Friday.

Malinin fell multiple times during his performance after heading into Friday night's action with a lead of 5.09 points over second place.

Fans were shocked by the result from the "Quad God."

Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov earned a gold medal with 291.58 points, while Japan's Yuma Kagiyama took home silver with 280.06 points. Fellow Japanese figure skater Shun Sato also finished with 274.90 points, earning bronze.

As for Malinin, he recorded 264.49 points.

The 21-year-old started off strong with a quad flip, but landed a single axel instead of a quadruple axel shortly afterwards. He then fell on his quadruple lutz before only doing a double salchow.

"I was not expecting that," Malinin told NBC following the result (h/t Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee). "I felt like going into this competition … I just felt ready getting on the ice. Maybe I was too confident it was going to go well. I can't process what happened."

"I blew it," he added. "That's honestly the first thing that came into my mind. There's no way that just happened. I was preparing the whole season. I felt so confident with my program. To go out and have that happen ... there's no words, honestly."

Malinin entered the 2026 Olympics with high expectations, as he's won each of the past two men's singles skating titles at the world championships.

He won't be leaving the Games empty-handed, though. Malinin helped the United States clinch its second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the team event on Sunday.