Replay Lounge 2026 Olympics | Men

[gsk8]

The Figure Skating events for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games took place February 6-21, 2026, at the Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan, Italy.

This thread is for more in-depth discussion for the Men's discipline after the segments are over (see Competition Threads below).

Share your thoughts!

USA's Ilia Malinin sets the bar in Olympic Short Program

USA's Ilia Malinin delivers in Olympic Short Program USA's Ilia Malinin set the bar for the Men's figure skating discipline after taking first place in

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Stunned, Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan takes Olympic gold in shocking upset

Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov makes Olympic history In a shocking upset, Mikhail Shaidorov rose from fifth place to capture the Men's Olympic gold in

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Men's Figure Skating​

2026 Olympics
Short Program | Feb 10
Free Skate | Feb 13

 

[ladyjane]

I so love watching and experiencing the men. It was funny because the (Dutch) commentators were actually quite emotional when French Adam skated, they were really impressed. Tbh I was too. Especially since his first half of the season (what there was of it) was not so good. Bravo. Such lovely movements, the musicality. I really enjoyed Donavan's swinging hips, I believe he's the only guy who can do it that way. Glad to see he'll be skating the Free. Ilia and Yuma were a bit of a repetition of last weekend, except that Ilia was a bit better and Yuma a bit less. Still good though. Junwhan is also a real joy to watch when he is on. As is Kevin. I was pleased that Petr got a warm round of applause after that horrible music thing. Alexandr's Prince programme is wonderful. A pity he just had to 'men' it with a mistake. Deniss is always a favourite of mine, and today was no exception. I have never seen Kyrylo skate so well, and his reaction in the K&C was priceless. Lukas is always fun, but not so good today. I was pleased to see Slovakian Adam also doing well. And what a pity for Kao. He did not have his day. Matteo, despite a mistake also did well. I was also pleased for Daniel who skated a better SP than I've seen him do before. Stephen is in 10th place, and rightly so. Well done. But...that shoelace. That was scary. He stayed so long in first though. I hope he ends in the top 10 after the FS. I liked Andrew and Maxim too, the one for just having a beautiful skate, the other for putting his all into the skate, very emotional. Glad to see Boyang as a more allround skater. Mikhail also skated well. Poor Shun, he can do so much better.

All-in-all, a lovely evening of skating.

 

[Mathman]

The scoring protocols have an interesting tale to tell.
Ilia Malinin prevailed over Yuma Kagiyama by a total of 5.09 points. On the triple Axel, ilia got 9.60 and Yuma 4.16 -- a difference of 5.44.

The men's short also poured some additional fuel on the fire of quads versus artistry. Comparing Malinin to Adam Siao Him Fa, Ilia did 4F and 4Lz in combination. Adam did 4S and 4T combo.

Daniel Grassl did 4Lo and 4Lz combo, compared to Junhwan Cha with only 1 quad, a Salchow.

 

[el henry]

Donovan in the free! (For Donovan and for what I can tell for most of his Mexican and Latin American fan base, qualifying for the free might as well be the gold medal. I love skaters who are just happy to be here.)

Maxim with all the feels

And Andrew. Oh Andrew! Over the past 12 years up and down and up and down and up and down, but now…what a great comp to have the SOHL.

 

[Skatingcat]

There was a figure skater skating under a neutral flag, and I have never seen him perform before. Were his scores in line with how he is usually scored in other competitions?

 

[Seruleane]

It was Petr from Russia! I don’t normally follow him but I assume his scores were slightly lower because he hasn’t competed internationally. We can argue whether this is fair or not. He did great though and said later he was having a lovely time competing at the Olympics and everyone was very friendly with them (he was worried they had been told not to socialize with him). I think he was skating to new music too but I’m not sure.

 

[Seruleane]

I was happy to see Ilia get over his nerves and nail his SP. Sad that Shun didn’t have a good SP, hoping he can redeem himself for the free. I was surprised Yuma stumbled out of his 3axel, but judges still placed him in 2nd, as I would have had him in 3rd and Adam in 2nd. I had not seen Adam skate before (again haven’t been following FS for awhile). Wow what a revelation! I’ll have to go back and watch some of his other programs.

 

[Mathman]

There was a figure skater skating under a neutral flag, and I have never seen him perform before. Were his scores in line with how he is usually scored in other competitions?

Following up on @Serulean explanation, Petr Gumennik is Russian national champion, but he has not competed internationally this year, so it was hard to tell what to expect. -- either from his skating or from the judges' reception of it. He skated pretty well, got satisfactory marks, but I don't think there is much we can learn from how the iSU judges scored the performance. Seemed fair to me.

We still have to wait for Adeliia Petrosyan to take the ice in women's before we can evaluate how the AIN thing turned out.

 

[Mathman]

I was happy to see Ilia get over his nerves and nail his SP.

Anything can happen, but Ilia should be feeling more confident now despite a wake-up call in the team event.

He has a 5-points lead over the field going into the free skate, and plus, in the LP he can score massive points just by methodically ticking off the quads on his jump card and not worry about dropping a level on a spin or whether the judges like his raspberry twist or not.

 

[SNAKSuyun]

Have people seen the full judging breakdown? The spread is wild after the top 3 especially, 4/9 judges actually had Junhwan Cha 4th, and only the Italian judge had Grassl 4th (5/9 judges had him 6th). The AZE judge had Petr 4th and Nika 5th while the CAN judge had Petr 19th lol.

 

[reneerose]

Finally saw Sabate's Minions program for the first time and really enjoyed it! Max was wonderful. And Yuma, Yuma and that step out...I wonder what would have been...anyway, wishing everyone a clean low-stress free skate.

 

[saine]

Kyrylo's short was a definite highlight for me. It was wonderful to see him perform his short dedicated to his father and improve his PB by a lot on such a big stage. His reaction in the kiss and cry showed how much that moment meant for him.

 

[Allikat]

Following up on @Serulean explanation, Petr Gumennik is Russian national champion, but he has not competed internationally this year, so it was hard to tell what to expect. -- either from his skating or from the judges' reception of it. He skated pretty well, got satisfactory marks, but I don't think there is much we can learn from how the iSU judges scored the performance. Seemed fair to me.

We still have to wait for Adeliia Petrosyan to take the ice in women's before we can evaluate how the AIN thing turned out.

It appears to me that Petr Gumennik received lower GOEs and PCs than his usual back in Russia--but of course he has only skated nationally this year and I guess last season also? He had to skate first. He really is 'better' than his marks here indicate, but he also isn't as known internationally and was forced to skate first, which automatically relegates him to somewhat lower levels. I'm afraid the same thing will happen to Adeliia Petrosian as well. (For the record, I looked up spellings for both skaters' names and found several, so went with the most prevalent.)

For those of us here who do watch Russian figure skating, since it's quite available online, no VPN necessary, we are 'aware' of Russian skaters and how they stack up with one another...it is not hard to compare them with all our international skaters, really. I scarcely think the judges are not likewise conscious of the AIN skaters and their abilities. I fear many harbor disdain for them, only believing them to be 'cheaters' because of the doping scandal from 2022 due to the incident late in 2021. Since these two were invited to skate at this year's Olympics, I only wish they could be judged more honestly and fairly.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Kyrylo's short was a definite highlight for me. It was wonderful to see him perform his short dedicated to his father and improve his PB by a lot on such a big stage.

Yes, I think he was underscored. That was a very professional performance, well controlled with big jumps and real emotion and a couple nice little surprises within the skating skills. My final ranking:

1. Adam Siao God Fa
2. Ilia Malinin
3. Yuma Kagiyama
4. Mikhail Shaidorov
5. Junhwan Cha
6. Kevin Aymoz
7. Andrew Torgashev
8. Kyrylo Marsak
9. Daniel Grassl
10. Shun Sato
11. Maxim Naumov
12. Stephen Gogolev
13. Nika Egadze
14. Boyang Jin
15. Petr Gumennik

It was a remarkably stable competition. No falls from these top 15 and 10 of them went clean. The overly convoluted, shapeless footwork sequences and spins continue to be a blight on the sport though. No program is ever able to gain the full momentum and expression it should be able to.

Petr Gumennik really is 'better' than his marks here indicate

Nah, that quad flip attempt was very sketchy, spins were slow, and there was nothing special about his performance or skating skills. Probably in a normal season his PCS would be massively overscored as the top Russian, but thankfully we didn't have to suffer that. He already got scored plenty favorably and was lucky to be placed in the top 12.

 

[yfan1]

I really had Aymoz ahead of Cha but I disagree with much of the rankings outside the top 6, but I suppose those matter quite a lot less.

 

[dorispulaski]

To be fair to Petr, he had to change his music in the the last week or so. His original SP was to the Perfume: The Story of a Murderer soundtrack, but suddenly he couldn't get clearance to use the music, which had been successfully cleared for other skaters like Carreira & Ponomarenko.

That is why his costume has all that blood soaked look. He had no time to get one appropriate for the Waltz he skated to.

I hope he will have a better skate in the FS.

Also, Ilia, Stephen, Nika, and Matteo skated both parts of the Team event before having to compete this SP. That's hard!

And as Team Event medalists, Yuma, Shun, Ilia, and Matteo are all dealing with blade damage/changes due to dealing with the Team Event medal podium damaging their skates. That is a dreadful thing to have happen to them all.

I wish them all the best for really good performances in the free skate. I hope they do their very best.

 

[ladyjane]

To be fair to Petr, he had to change his music in the the last week or so. His original SP was to the Perfume: The Story of a Murderer soundtrack, but suddenly he couldn't get clearance to use the music, which had been successfully cleared for other skaters like Carreira & Ponomarenko.

That is why his costume has all that blood soaked look. He had no time to get one appropriate for the Waltz he skated to.

I hope he will have a better skate in the FS.

Also, Ilia, Stephen, Nika, and Matteo skated both parts of the Team event before having to compete this SP. That's hard!

And as Team Event medalists, Yuma, Shun, Ilia, and Matteo are all dealing with blade damage/changes due to dealing with the Team Event medal podium damaging their skates. That is a dreadful thing to have happen to them all.

I wish them all the best for really good performances in the free skate. I hope they do their very best.

I believe Matteo only did the second part of the TE, and Daniel did the first. I also thought Petr did very well for skating to different music. I recall that in the Qualifier (which he won) he did skate to perfume, and it looked a lot better.

 

[viennaskater]

Sad for Litvintsev not qualifying. He is a skater I have liked for many years but he hasn't progressed very far. I had been looking forward to seeing that fabulous "Joker" LP again *sigh*.

 

[pesto]

I mean, that wasn't even Petr's second choice of programme, which was to go back to last year's Dune, and the realisation of his problem was very late indeed. Pretty good for what is effectively a scratch programme, and the type of music is obviously in his comfort zone, but that is bound to affect both his element timing and interpretation, and his marks reflect that.

 

[Tutto]

I am thrilled for Adam. Trying to think of some strategy to survive Friday. And it is Friday the 13th ! My blood pressure goes up when I just think about it...
Mad at Aleksander Selevko, all went so well and then to fall on 3lz after a beautiful quad and 3axel! It is just so cruel, he probably relaxed just a little too soon? He is the best natural dancer I ever seen.
All is all it was a great competition. If ISU really proceeds with its plan for an artistic program without jumps nobody is going to watch FS it is an idiotic idea.