In a painful reminder that nothing is certain in sports, two-time and reigning World champion Ilia Malinin – the prohibitive favorite for a gold medal at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 – faltered on four of his seven planned quadruple jumps to place 15th in the men's free skate on Friday and end the competition in eighth place.

"All negatives aside, the atmosphere was incredible. The support, even with that skate, the crowd never stopped cheering," Malinin said. "It's honestly why this is a very special sport. Not in a lot of other sports do you have that privilege. It's not only to be an athlete but you are also an artist. So there is also a lot of pressure in there for what art you make on the ice or how you execute other things. I think all the pressure, all of the media and being the Olympic gold hopeful was too much to handle."

Malinin, who had won 14 consecutive individual competitions dating back to 2023 and clinched gold for Team USA in the team event just days ago, opened his program well, with a strong quad flip. But he popped his quad Axel attempt into a single, and after recovering with a solid quad Lutz, doubled an intended quad loop. Two falls on other planned quads followed in the second half of his free skate. His finished the free skate with 156.33 points and ended the competition with 264.49 points.

"I'm still trying to understand what happened specifically, but it's done," he said. "I can't change the outcome. I feel like a lot of people, if they could, would definitely go back and change all the outcomes they had. My life has been through a lot of ups and downs, and just before getting into my starting pose, I just felt all of those experiences, memories, thoughts really just rush in, and it just felt so overwhelming. I really didn't know how to handle that moment."

Andrew Torgashev achieved every skater's dream in Milan, to skate personal-best international programs on Olympic ice. Performing to selections from Apashe and Olafur Arnalds, the two-time and reigning U.S. silver medalist opened with a strong quadruple toe loop and landed two solid triple Axels and four other triple jumps. His step and choreo sequence, one of the most impressive in the event, had it all: knee slides, lunges, a one-arm cartwheel and a flying leap.

Torgashev, whose only error was a flawed landing on his second quad toe loop, earned an international career-high 170.12 points for the segment and a total score of 259.06 — more than 12 points clear of his previous best international score. He placed 12th overall.

"I feel good about it," Torgashev said. "Aside from the second toe. I think [I had] a little bit of pre-rotation on the three-turn and it knocked me out left, so I couldn't hang on. But I felt like I recovered well from that and did the rest of the performance as if nothing happened."

His Olympic experience, he said, was "humbling."

"All of these guys are great at the Olympics; I feel good about myself," he said of his biggest takeaways from the event. "I'm honored to be competing with these guys and [now] back home to train. And honestly, just to stay present in the moment. I'll try to take this mentality with me to future competitions."

The quadruple jumps just weren't there today for Maxim Naumov, who fell on both of the quad Salchow attempts in his free skate to "In This Shirt" by The Irrepressibles. The reigning U.S. bronze medalist landed two triple Axels in the lyrical and expressive program and achieved two Level 4 spins. The Boston-based skater earned 137.71 points for a total score of 223.36, placing 20th overall.

"From the start to the finish, I was trying to stay calm the whole time," Naumov told NBC. "There were obviously some mistakes, but I wanted [everyone] to know I left no stone unturned, just fought for every single thing, from the beginning to the end, even though the landings weren't there. ... I'm proud of myself for that."

Naumov hopes his skate and journey over the last year after the loss of his parents will inspire not only his students from the Tomorrow's Champions program at The Skating Club of Boston, which was holding a watch party at the club, but anyone struggling with their mental health.

"I want to be an inspiration for others. You can do so much more than you think that you can. I hope I can inspire people to see that in themselves. I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy who had some crazy things happen to, but I picked myself up and I continued to move even when it was the last thing that was on my mind. I think that I'm not special in that way. I think everyone has the ability to do that."

Figure skating competition takes a pause on Saturday, with the pairs short program set for Sunday at 1:45 p.m. ET.

For full results and to follow Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games, including the full schedule, bios, news and more, visit the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 Competition Central.