MILAN, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov emerged as the shock winner of the men's competition at the Milano Cortina Games on Friday as heavy favourite Ilia Malinin's free programme fell apart and he finished out of the medals in one of Olympic figure skating's biggest upsets.
Japan's Yuma Kagiyama took silver and countryman Shun Sato captured bronze on a night when many top skaters struggled to execute their jumps.
Malinin had been expected to pack in seven quadruple jumps, including the quad Axel which only he has landed in competition but the American's display unravelled as he made one mistake after another.
From the moment the expected quad Axel turned into a single Axel, he appeared to be in freefall as he made two crash landings onto the ice and ended up executing only three quads cleanly.
He looked absolutely distraught by the end of his free skate and kept shaking his head, scarcely believing the nightmare he had just endured on the biggest stage for his sport.
Having entered the final day of the men's competition with a lead of over five points from Tuesday's short programme, Friday's score of 156.33 was over 80 points short of his personal best of 238.24 and left him languishing in 15th place in the free skate segment. He ended up eighth overall with a total of 264.49 points.
Shaidorov, who had finished fifth in the short programme, topped Friday's competition with 198.64 points to earn the gold medal with a total of 291.58.
Malinin said the pressure of being the gold-medal favourite and the enormous media attention on him in his first Games was "too much to handle."
"I'm trying to understand what happened specifically," Malinin, whose performance helped the U.S. to win the team gold last weekend, told reporters.
"But I know that it's done. I can't change the outcome."
Shaidorov, who like Malinin is aged 21 and known for his technical ability, fell on his back in ecstasy on the ice at the Milano Ice Skating Arena after delivering a personal best but few could have foreseen what was to come since all of the main medal contenders had yet to skate.
Frenchman Adam Siao Him Fa, who entered the free skate in third place, struggled mightily and Kagiyama, who was in second behind Malinin, also failed to live up to his standards.
Their errors appeared to have set the stage for two-time world champion Malinin to cruise to the title, especially since he had won 14 competitions in a row dating back to 2023.
But it was not to be.
Malinin said he was happy for Shaidorov, whose medal is Kazakhstan's first of the Games.
"I went up to him and I congratulated him because watching him skate, I watched him in the locker room, and we're just so proud of him," he said.
"That's what's so special about the sport as well, is everyone has each other's support.
"And I feel like we're all a big, huge figure skating family. And I think people forget that when you know they see us competing against each other."
(Reporting by Rory Carroll and Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Pritha Sarkar)
