Ilia Malinin’s one-foot backflip wins Team USA gold in Winter Olympics

MILAN — Ilia Malinin secured gold for Team USA.

There was no Quad Axel from the ‘Quad God,’ but he pulled off a one-footed backflip that stunned the crowd and gave his country back-to-back team titles. The U.S. and Japan were tied for first place going into the final programs of the team event.

Malinin performed in the men’s free skate of the team event Sunday, Feb. 8. He decided to go for the Triple Axel instead and had a stumble that looked like might doom him. Instead, he powered through and delivered the sequence of the night with a quad salchow and triple axel, and then for good measure, did the backflip that brought everyone to their feet.

It was as strong of a finish as you can get, and he earned a whopping score of 200.03, with a 110.32 technical score and 89.71 points from the component. Japan’s Shun Sato closed the night with a score of 194.86 — technical score 106.49, component 88.37 ― giving Japan the silver medal.

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Malinin took the ice after Amber Glenn turned in a shaky performance for third place in the women’s free skate that required Malinin to beat out Japan’s Shun Sato for Team USA to take gold.

Malinin’s program is set to the song ‘The Ball’ by Asaf Avidan, ‘The Smell of the Sea’ by Alan Mayer and ‘Code Duello’ by Power-Haus and Sergiu-Dan Muresan.

These were the elements of Malinin’s for his free skate program: