Updated February 8, 2026 at 11:31 PM HST
Want more Olympics updates? Get our behind-the-scenes newsletter for what it's like to be at these Games.
MILAN — The U.S. took gold in the figure skating team event for the second Winter Olympics in a row, beating rival Japan by just one point.
Team USA held the lead going into the third day of the competition on Sunday. But after the pairs and women's events, it entered the final event of the competition — the men's free skate — locked in a tie with Japan.
It all came down to the last two skaters of the night: U.S. phenom Ilia Malinin and Japan's Shun Sato.
Malinin, the reigning U.S. champion, has been undefeated in major competitions since 2023. But the suspense still had the Milano Ice Skating Area — packed to the brim with spectators and celebrities — on the edge of their seats.
"I went out there and just decided: OK, let the nerves down, you just really need to get in the zone, let things happen," Malinin said after.
Despite a small stumble, Malinin landed five quadruple jumps and a single-footed backflip to score above 200. Sato followed with a clean but less technically challenging program.
In a made-for-TV finish, the U.S. beat Japan by a single point. Italy took bronze, buoyed by Matteo Rizzo's knee-sliding skate and raucous support from the home crowd.
"I'm proud of myself and proud of my team for all the work they put into this ... without each other, we wouldn't have gotten this gold medal," Malinin said.
Sunday also marked the Olympic debut of American Amber Glenn, the two-time reigning national champion. She finished third in the women's free skate, looking visibly disappointed with her score.
Glenn chalked it up to feeling fatigued from days of practice, and said she would prioritize recovery — "literally just sleeping" — ahead of the women's individual events starting next week.
"I wish I could have kept that lead for us, but unfortunately, I lost it," she said. "And there's nothing I can do about it now, except for try and do the best I can in the individual and support my team."
By the end of the night, both she and Malinin — along with pairs skaters Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea — were wearing their first Olympic medals. Ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates earned their second.
The team event, which debuted in 2014, pits the world's 10 top-ranked countries against each other via representatives in each of the four skating disciplines: men's, women's, pairs and ice dance.
Countries get points (1-10) depending on how they score in the first two events (short program and rhythm dance). The top five advance to the final round (free skate and free dance). This year, those were the U.S., Japan, Italy, Canada and Georgia. With Russia still banned from team competition over its war in Ukraine (and earlier from state-sponsored doping), the battle for bronze was also fierce.
With the first figure skating medals of these Games now distributed, skaters from all around the world — including the big names who took the ice this weekend — will vie for their own individual medals in the coming days.
What happened Saturday
Saturday ended in a relative upset, when Malinin finished preliminarily in second place. He scored nearly 10 points behind 2022 silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan, who earned a season-best score and a roaring reception from the crowd.
Malinin didn't seem fazed, telling reporters it had long long been his plan "to come into this team competition with only 50% of my full potential." Even so, he became the first skater do a legal backflip on Olympic ice in five decades (the move was banned in competition from 1977 to 2024).
Malinin still scored high enough to keep the U.S. in the first-place spot, by just a hair. At the team event's halfway mark on Saturday, the competition narrowed down to the U.S. and Japan — separated by a single point — followed by Italy, Canada and Georgia.
But Team USA made up the difference and more in the rhythm dance, where ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates dominated the scoreboard with their flamenco-inspired program "Paint It Black" program.
They came in first, followed by Italy's Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri and Canada's Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha. The U.S. finished Day Two with 44 points to Japan's 39 and Italy's 39.
"I think our team is incredibly strong, arguably the strongest its ever been and I have the utmost faith in them and I'll be proud of them no matter what the outcome is," Chock said on the eve of the last day of the team event.
What happened on Friday
Team USA took the lead on Day One, thanks to strong performances by its only repeat Olympians.
Chock and Bates claimed first and a world-best score of 91.06 in ice dance, followed by France's Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry at a close 89.98.
Coming in third was British duo Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, who got the crowd clapping with their Spice Girls medley (this season's musical theme for rhythm dance is the '90s, so the morning's soundtrack was dominated by girl groups and boy bands). Canada's Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier finished fourth.
In the pairs short program, Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea of the U.S. made their Olympic debut to a crowd so encouraging — many wearing USA logos and flags — that Kam later said she could barely hear their music over the applause at one point. Kam fell on a throw early in the program, but the duo recovered quickly and finished in fifth place.
"It's disappointing whenever you make a mistake, but I think we did an amazing job of picking ourselves back into the program and really finishing with some really strong elements as well," said 34-year-old O'Shea, who came out of retirement to pair up with Kam in 2022. "So the next thing is just put it behind us, keep cheering on our team … and get ready for our long program."
Japan's Miura Riku and Kihara Ryuichi, two-time Olympians and two-time world champions, placed first in pairs by a wide margin. Luka Berulava and Anastasiia Metelkina of Georgia — a growing skating powerhouse thanks to its many Russian-born recruits — placed second, followed by Italy's Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii, who had a heroes' welcome on their home turf.
"We knew there would be such a [big] audience, but you don't understand it until you go through it," Conti said.
Italy also placed third in the women's short program, after reigning European bronze medalist Lara Naki Gutmann earned her season's best score. Alysa Liu, turning heads with her signature striped hair and palpable joy, finished in first place — later bumped down to second — to put the U.S. back on top.
"We're not there very long, so I try to savor every moment," said Liu, who competed in the 2022 Olympics but was not part of the team event.
Kaori Sakamoto — who won bronze in 2022 in addition to helping Japan medal in the team event — skated last, to an emotional rendition of "Time to Say Goodbye" in honor of her upcoming retirement. She earned her own season-best score to knock Liu out of the top individual spot, but didn't quite close the gap between the two countries on the scoreboard.
A star-studded roster
Part of the suspense of the team competition is finding out who each country will choose to compete in each category, which is usually announced about 24 hours in advance.
It's not as simple as just picking the top scorer in each discipline. It requires some strategizing, since anyone who competes in the team event will still have to take the ice two more times in their own category over the next two weeks.
"It's all going to come down to the decisions that the athletes and the people in charge make," U.S. skater Amber Glenn said earlier this week. "We are going to prioritize both physical and mental health."
So countries had to decide whether their strongest skater should compete in both programs of the team event, or skip one of them to get some rest in between. Each country can swap up to two (out of four) entries midway through the competition, though not all countries did.
The U.S. has an advantage, in part because of the sheer size of its team: 16 people, having secured maximum quota spots in men's, women's and ice dance. The next biggest teams, Japan and Canada, have 12 people each.
And several U.S. athletes have downplayed the stress of participating in the team event, instead embracing it as more time on Olympic ice. Pairs skater O'Shea is one of them.
"You might think that there's extra pressure, but at the end of the day, it's another performance and you feel the honor to be on the team," he said.
In the end, the U.S. only made one swap, subbing in Glenn for Liu on the last day of the competition.
Copyright 2026 NPR
