Figure skaters and their families from across the D.C. region gathered today (Friday) at Reston’s SkateQuest to watch their homegrown phenom pursue gold and, possibly, history an ocean and continent away at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
In minutes, however, that vision fell apart as Vienna resident Ilia Malinin missed the Olympic podium entirely after a disastrous free skate where he fell twice, finishing in eighth place with 264.49 points.
After Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and France’s Adam Siao Him Fa made similar slip-ups during their routines, Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov unexpectedly clinched the gold medal in men’s figure skating with 291 points.
Shocked gasps, followed by a hush rippled through the crowd assembled in the multipurpose room at SkateQuest (1800 Michael Faraday Court) when Malinin fell during a quad lutz. Unable to comfort him in person, the community where the “Quad God” has trained since he was 5 made do with encouraging claps as he left the ice.
“I can’t process what happened,” Malinin told NBC during its broadcast, adding that he was “grateful” for the experience but admitting that his first thought after finishing was “I blew it.”
Carrying a five-point lead over Kagiyama and Siao Him Fa after a strong short program on Tuesday (Feb. 10) punctuated with a backflip, Malinin had been expected to add an individual gold medal to the team one he helped the U.S. win on Sunday (Feb. 8).
While the result wasn’t want they expected, the staff and skaters at SkateQuest expressed support for and pride in Malinin.
“He has been a big part of my skating journey,” said Madison Chong, who has been skating at SkateQuest since she was 8.
“He is such a great person,” Madison added, describing how Malinin always encourages her whenever she struggles with her skating. “I’m wishing him the best and cheering him on.”
Chong’s mother noted that athletes are humans who make mistakes, and one competition shouldn’t define their journey.
“I know Ilia is a lot more than we saw today,” she told FFXnow.
As many as 200 people were expected to attend SkateQuest’s Olympics watch party after a 150-slot registration list filled up. Organizers added a waitlist but had to cut off at 45 people, SkateQuest Business Manager Margarita Montalvan says, adding that the business has received “calls every day about it.”
A SkateQuest employee for nearly 20 years, Montalvan previously served as director of its camp program and beams when asked about the experience of watching Malinin grow up on the ice. Even outside of competitions, when he was just performing “The Nutcracker,” for example, he impressed.
“I grew up watching figure skating because my sister was a figure skater, and she made it to a really high level. But we just knew he was special from the beginning,” Montalvan told FFXnow. “He had something. He had a drive about him, and he went out there and he did and he’s still doing amazing things.”
The son of Olympic skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, who both coach at SkateQuest, Malinin entered his first Olympics with a stretch of 14 consecutive victories in full competitions under his belt. That includes the past four U.S. championships, the last two world titles, and a host of world records — most crucially, the best mark ever for a free skate, a massive score of 238.24 points that pushed him to a 30-point victory at the Grand Prix Final in December.
Kagiyama, the last man to beat Malinin, was second that day. Siao Him Fa finished in fifth.
“Being the favorite is one thing,” Malinin said after his short program, “but actually getting it done and doing it under pressure and having the skate of your life to earn that medal is another thing. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself and say that it’s guaranteed that I’m getting that gold medal. Because, of course, I still have to put in the work.”
The biggest question hovering over Malinin’s free skate was whether he’d cement his reputation as the “Quad God” by attempting and landing a quad axel.
The only person to ever land the jump in competition, Malinin has a record-tying seven quadruple jumps scheduled for his program; by comparison, Kagiyama and Siao Him Fa have four in their free skates.
Where the other five main jumps in figure skating start facing backward, the axel begins with the skater facing forward, adding another half revolution.
“I’m hoping that I’ll feel good enough to do it,” Malinin acknowledged before the free skate. “But of course I always prioritize health and safety. So I really want to put myself in the right mindset where I’ll feel really confident to go into it.”
Malinin’s success has fueled a boom in demand for classes at SkateQuest, with staff anticipating up to 800 students signing up for its next learn-to-skate program starting at the end of February, the Washington Business Journal reported.
Despite his increasingly public profile, Montalvan says the spotlight hasn’t gone to Malinin’s head, describing him as “a sweet, kind, young man” worthy of his position as a role model for younger skaters.
“You definitely have a community within SkateQuest, which is great, and then you have all these other skaters coming, and that’s just growing the community,” Montalvan said. “… It’s giving inspiration and everything to all these kids who are like, oh, it’s possible. It’s possible for them to do it, seeing as he’s a local and everything. I think it’s definitely brought a sense of community around us.”
