Ilia Malinin once again displayed the grit of a champion, winning the men's free skate en route to helping Team USA repeat as Olympic team event gold medalists.

The United States becomes the first team to win consecutive Olympic golds in the team event and is the only country to have medaled in every Olympic team event since its debut in 2014.

"All of us put our heart and soul into this and without each other we wouldn't have done it," Malinin said. "I went in there knowing it was going to be a tiebreaker in the men's event. I went straight into this, and it went exactly as planned. I'm so thankful for that. … It came down to the energy, the support and passion from my whole team."

With the score tied at 59 between the U.S. and Japan, it all came down to Malinin and Japan's Shun Sato.

Playing things a bit conservative, Malinin, the two-time and reigning World champion elected not to risk his quadruple Axel, opening instead with a superb quad flip and solid quad Lutz and triple Axel. Things got a bit dicey when Malinin turned out of his second quad Lutz and failed to complete a combination, but Malinin fought back with other weapons in his vast arsenal, including a quad Salchow-triple Axel sequence that notched 21.41 points — the highest-scoring element of the men's event. 

Malinin's 200.03 points earned him a hard-fought but convincing win over Sato, who skated a near-perfect program. The crucial 10 points gave Team USA 69 total, with Team Japan posting 68 points and Italy earning the bronze with 60 points.

"I was so proud of Ilia and everybody on our team," Danny O'Shea, U.S. team captain for the team event, said. "It took every single point for us to do it today, and at the end of the day, that's what it takes. The team event is something special because it really does bring everyone together to support each other, build each other up and find ways to get one more point."

In the midst of the tight showdown, Team USA called on Ellie Kam and O'Shea, and the skaters responded with their finest-ever free skate.

With the pressure squarely on their shoulders, the 2024 U.S. champions fought for every difficult element, landing their side-by-side triple Salchow-double Axel sequences as well as both throw triple jumps. Their intricate pair spin and lifts — especially a spectacular closing Level 4 Axel lasso lift that was their highest-scoring element of the program at 8.80 points — were some of the finest in the event.

Their personal best 135.36 points placed them fourth and added a crucial seven points to Team USA's total.

"It's so amazing, those moments you've dreamed up since you were a little kid, to be able to put out a performance like that," O'Shea told NBC. "We know the team is counting on us to get some points today, so I am just overwhelmed with words [and] overwhelmed with emotion, but with pure joy today. So that was our goal, to live with joy and to bring joy to others, and I think we did that today."

At age 35, O'Shea became the oldest U.S. Olympic pairs skater since 1932 and the oldest figure skater from any country to make an Olympic debut since 1948.

Their performance to a Cinematic Pop medley, he said, undoubtedly will go down as one of his (their) career highlights.

"I think we'll tell you in a couple of months whether it was a performance of a lifetime, but it's certainly our personal best," said O'Shea, who teamed up with Kam in September 2022. "To put it out on a stage like this and to feel like as a team, we're still growing when we get to the Olympics, we're still improving and there's a lot of opportunity to improve even off of what we did tonight, but I think we couldn't be more proud of how we performed today."

Amber Glenn, the three-time and reigning U.S. champion who at 26 years old became the oldest U.S. women's singles skater to compete in an Olympic Games in 98 years, opened her free skate with a triple Axel, the only woman in the event to attempt the three-and-a-half revolution jump. While the landing was shaky, the jump was fully rotated, earning 7.20 points. Her next element, an intended triple-triple combination, was reduced to a single triple flip, but the 2024 Grand Prix Final champion found her legs in the second half of the program with a strong triple loop-double Axel-double Axel sequence that tallied 14.05 points, as well as a dramatic choreographic sequence that included a split jump into an Ina Bauer.

Glenn's 138.62 points earned third place and eight points for Team USA.

"I'm happy I was able to fight through the program and stay committed to everything," Glenn said. "But overall, there were many, many points left on the table, and I did not perform the way I wanted to. ... I'm proud of the mental strength I've built over the years to get through mistakes at the beginning and really fight in the second half."

Along with Malinin, Kam and O'Shea, and Glenn, Alysa Liu and Madison Chock and Evan Bates stood on the podium for Team USA after competing earlier in the team event. For Chock and Bates, this marks their second Olympic team event gold medal after they secured gold at the 2022 Games.

Malinin, Glenn, Liu, and Kam and O'Shea also took home gold in their Olympic team event debut.

For full results from the team event 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.