MILAN (AP) — Ilia Malinin, widely considered the best figure skater of this generation, could take a big step toward going down as one of the greatest ever Friday night down when the American goes for the gold medal in the men's free skate at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

The 21-year-old known as the “Quad God” has a five-point lead over Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and France's Adam Siao Him Fa after the short program. That would be a big margin for anyone, but it could be insurmountable given who is in first place.

Malinin is undefeated over two-plus years, a stretch of 14 consecutive victories in full competitions. 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.

Yagiyama, 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.”

In truth, he doesn't have to do much more than show up.

That's because the longer nature of the free skate plays even more to his advantage, since it contains seven jumping passes instead of the three in the short program. He has a record-tying seven quadruple jumps scheduled for his program; by comparison, Kagiyama and Siao Him Fa have four in each other free skates.

“It's not so much the point total, it's the difference between the placements,” said Scott Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic champion. “Say it's football. You win by seven points, that's a touchdown; that's good. If you win by 10 points, that's a two-possession victory. You kind of dominated, right? He is winning competitions by 50 points or more. That's like, seven touchdowns.”

The real drama might not be whether Malinin wins but whether he lands the first quad axel in the Olympics.

The sons of Olympic skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, the ever-confident Malinin is the only person ever to land the jump in competition. The reason it is so difficult is that the axel begins facing forward, whereas the other five main jumps in figure skating start facing backward, and that adds another half revolution to the quad axel.

“I’m hoping that I’ll feel good enough to do it,” Malinin acknowledged. “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 already has one gold medal from the team event, where he finished a surprising second to Kagiyama in the short program but beat fellow Japanese star Shun Sato in the free skate. That head-to-head win allowed the Americans to defend their team title.

Afterward, Malinin admitted that the pressure of the Olympics had gotten to him in his debut. But those nerves settled during his free skate, and by the time of his individual short program Tuesday night, his fearlessness and spunk was back again.

“Now I feel like I've taken over that fight that I had in the team event,” Malinin said, “so now I can really just focus solely on that free program, and let everything happen naturally.”

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics