By Gina Capellazzi, Team FSO website administrator
Photos by Robin Ritoss and Giada Arioldi
MILAN, ITALY — Two-time World Champion Ilia Malinin is one skate away from being crowned a two-time Olympic gold medalist. On Tuesday evening inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena, Malinin delivered his “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown” short program for the second time during these Olympic games. The 21-year-old kept the same planned elements – quadruple flip, triple Axel and quadruple Lutz-triple toe combination — but unlike the team event, Malinin skated clean and more relax to earn a short program score of 108.16, just shy of a season’s best to win the short program segment. He has a five point lead heading into Friday’s free skate.
Malinin admitted to the media following his skate that his performances in the team event may be due to the “Olympic pressure”, as he calls it.
“Going out there the first time, hitting that Olympic ice and feeling the atmosphere, I didn’t expect it to be so much and it took me a little while to understand what really happened,” he explained. “But now that I understand that, I took a different approach today, really just took things nice and calm, nice and slow, just relaxed and really just pushed the autopilot button and just let it on cruise control.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, prior to the men’s short program, the men had their warm-up practice in the main rink. But when the last group came out for that 20-minute session, surprisingly missing was the newly crowned Olympic gold medalist in the team event. Malinin told the media that he had trained earlier in the day so that he had more time to relax before the program.
“I think that hearing that schedule was a little bit tight, and there was a possibility I would have to stay at the venue the whole time, I was like I want to lay in bed, so I decided to have an earlier practice,” he explained. 
In the men’s short program of the team event, Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama edged out Malinin to earn ten points for Team Japan, helping them win their second straight Olympic team silver medal. But in the individual event, Kagiyama stepped out of his triple Axel after cleanly landing a quadruple toe-triple toe combination and a quadruple Salchow. He earned a free skate score of 103.07, five points shy of the score he earned in the team event.
“Honestly, short program scores don’t mean much,” Kagiyama said. “In my case, no matter how high or low they are, they’re not a reference at all for the free skate. So to begin with, I just tried to do everything I could at my best.”
Prior to the men’s short program, France’s Adam Siao Him Fa hadn’t competed since the French Championships in December. The French federation had advised the 2024 World bronze medalist to skip January’s European Championships to focus on his preparation for the Olympics. Not competing at the ISU event may have helped Siao Him Fa as he now sits in third place heading into the free skate. In his program dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci, Siao Him Fa produced a quadruple toe-triple toe combination, quadruple Salchow and triple Axel to earn a new personal best score of 102.55 points, 0.52 points out of second place.
“I had a long time to prepare and I have trained really hard,” Siao Him Fa said. “I’ve never trained so well before and I never was so ready for a competition. I skipped the European Championships because it was really necessary for me to have this real time of training to redevelop my physical and mental form and to recover.”
If Siao Him Fa is to medal on Friday, he would become the first French man to win an Olympic medal since Philippe Candeloro won bronze in 1994 and 1998. 
Daniel Grassl, who competed in the short program of the team event and who earned a bronze medal with Team Italy, delivered a much stronger performance in the men’s individual short program. His “Tango per la libertà” free skate included a quadruple Lutz-triple toe combination and a triple Axel. He lost points on his quadruple loop, which was a quarter shy of fully rotated. He received a 93.46 and is sitting in fourth place heading into the free skate.
“It was nice to hear the crowd so loud,” Grassl said following his skate.
2025 World silver medalist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan made his Olympic debut on Tuesday evening with a solid short program. He opened his Dune short program with a quadruple Lutz-triple toe combination, which was slightly under-rotated. He cleanly landed a triple Axel and quadruple toe and earned a short program score of 92.94. He is in fifth place heading into the free skate.
Korea’s Junhwan Cha, who performed his short program in the team event, also saw better results in the men’s individual event. His “Rain, In Your Black Eyes” short program, complete with a quadruple loop and triple Lutz-triple loop combination, earned him a season’s best score of 92.72. His only error was his triple Axel was slightly under-rotated. He will skate in the final group of the men’s event on Friday.
France’s Kevin Aymoz, who struggled to qualify for the free skate at the European Championships in January, earned a season’s best score of 92.46. He’s in seventh place after the short program.
2026 U.S. silver medalist Andrew Torgashev, who made his Olympic debut on Tuesday, earned a season’s best score of 88.94. He sits in eighth place, just 0.24 points ahead of Japan’s Shun Sato, who had some issues with his quadruple Lutz-double toe combination.
Canada’s Stephen Gogolev, who participated in both segments of the team event, rounded out the top ten. Midway through his skate, Gogolev’s boot lace came undone and it hung down from his skate. He did not seem to have an issues with it.
“I’m feeling pretty happy,” he said after his skate. “There are two days to rest before the short program.”
2026 U.S. bronze medalist Maxim Naumov earned a season’s best score of 85.86. He’s in 14th place heading into the free skate. Naumov has received a lot of attention as he is competing in Milan without his parents and coaches, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who died in the mid-air plane and helicopter crash over the Potomac River in January 2025. In all, 28 members of the figure skating community, who were coming home from the U.S. National Development Camp in Wichita, Kansas perished in the crash. Skaters are including a message to the fans on the jumbotron as they are announced to the ice, and Naumov’s message was, ‘Mom and Dad, this one is for you.’ He also held up a photo of them in the kiss and cry.
“It (The program) felt like nothing I had done before. To be able to make it happen when it counts, there is no better feeling. Thank you to everyone who supported me. I felt like I had my parents guiding me like a chess piece on a chess board,” he said.
In all 24 skaters advanced to Friday’s free skate. The five skaters who did not qualify were Spain’s Tomas Guarino Sabate, Korea’s Hyungyeom Kim, Sweden’s Andreas Nordeback, Latvia’s Fedir Kuliss and Azerbaijan’s Vladimir Litvintsev.
