Peak moments of the first day of Milan vs. Cortina
USAT’s Sam Cardona Norberg breaks down all the biggest things that happened on the first day of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
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MILAN – The team figure skating competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics will conclude today with a free dance between men and women.
For the Americans, “Quad God” Ilya Marin, a gold medal candidate in the men’s singles, is skating in the men’s free dance. This came a day after the 21-year-old fumbled a bit in the short program of the team event, finishing second behind Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama. In the women’s free skate, U.S. champion Amber Glenn will take on the task, with the 26-year-old making her Olympic debut. In the pairs session, Ellie Kamm and Danny O’Shea perform free skates.
Entering this day, the United States led the team standings with 44 points, followed by Japan (39 points), followed by Italy (37 points), Canada (35 points), and Georgia (32 points).
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Always east.
- Pair free skate: 1:30pm
- Women’s single free skate: 2:45pm
- Men’s single free skate: 3:55pm
USA is broadcasting all three sessions and Peacock is live streaming all sessions.
Watch Olympic figure skating at Peacock
The 21-year-old will compete in the men’s short program in the team event and will next compete in the team free skate on Sunday. It is not yet known whether he will compete in the men’s free skate portion of the team event. They will then compete in the men’s individual competition, which includes the short program on February 10th and the free skate on February 13th.
The U.S. national champion will compete in the women’s team free skate, followed by the women’s singles competition on February 17 (short program) and February 19 (free skate).
The men’s singles competition begins with the short program on February 10th and concludes with the free skate on February 13th, after which medals will be awarded.
ice dancing vs figure skating
Ice dancing does not involve jumps or lifts, as there are in pair figure skating. Ice dance consists of two sections: rhythm dance and free dance.
Ilia Marin’s parents
Marin was born in the field of figure skating. His mother, Tatiana Marinina, was originally from the Soviet Union, specifically Siberia, and represented Uzbekistan at the World Figure Skating Championships for 10 consecutive years. She finished eighth at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, where Tara Lipinski won the gold medal and Michelle Kwan won the silver medal. Marinina finished fourth at the 1999 World Championships and competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, but withdrew after the short program due to influenza.
Marinin’s father, Roman Skorniakov, represented Uzbekistan in the same two Olympics, in 1998 and 2002, finishing 19th in both. He and Marinina married in 2000, became skating coaches in the United States, and moved to the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., where Ilia was born in December 2004. His parents worried that Skolniakov was too difficult to pronounce, so he adopted the Russian masculine form of his mother’s surname.
The standings of the team matches entering the third day are as follows: Only five teams remain.
- US: 44 points
- Japan: 39 points
- Italy: 37 points
- Georgia: 35 points
- Canada: 32 points
A figure skating routine consists of two scores: a technical component score and a program component score. As the name suggests, the Technical Element score concerns the jumps, spins, and step sequences in your performance. Program component scores consist of composition, presentation, and skating skills.
Pair starting order
- Ellie Kamm and Danny O’Shea (USA)
- Lea Pereira and Trent Michaud (Canada)
- Sarah Conti and Matthii Niccolo (Italy)
- Anastasia Metelkina and Luka Berlava (Georgia)
- Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara (Japan)
Women’s free start order
- Madeline Scissas (Canada)
- Anastasia Gubanova (Georgia)
- Lara Maki Guttmann (Italy)
- Amber Glenn (USA)
- Kaori Sakamoto (Japan)
Men’s free start order
- Nika Egadze (Georgia)
- Matteo Rizzo (Italy)
- Stephen Gogolev (Canada)
- Ilia Marin (USA)
- Shun Sato (Japan)
Quad God Figure Skater: Nickname of Ilya Marinin
Simply put, Ilya Marin has the most versatile jumps of any figure skater in history. He launched seven quadruple jumps into the air in a single long program at last month’s Grand Prix Final, becoming the first skater to land a quadruple axel.
Marinin’s username used to be Lutz God, but he changed it to Quadruple God after landing his first quadruple jump.
“I didn’t really think about it…As the days went by, people started asking, ‘Why did you call yourself Quad God, when you could only do one jump?'” he said on USA TODAY’s new Olympic podcast, Milan Magic, whose first episode airs Saturday. “And I thought, ‘Oh, okay, maybe I should be a quad god.'” From there, he found a rhythm, landing quad after quad, and of course landing his first quad axel. ”
“In the most humbling way possible, I think it definitely helped not only my confidence in skating in general, but also the feeling that I deserve to be recognized for who I am.”
Listen to “Milan Magic” on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the full episode on YouTube or USA TODAY.
Quad Axel in figure skating: how Ilia Marin trained for it
Marinin said on USA TODAY’s new Olympic podcast “Milan Magic” with Christine Brennan and Brian Boitano, the first episode of which airs Saturday, that he likes to skate the entire program at least once a day. But that doesn’t mean every jump in that practice session has to be a quad. It depends on how his body feels.
“For me, to maintain stamina, just to maintain stamina, at least the standard base can be all triple jumps. But of course, depending on how I’m feeling and how my training is going, I can say, ‘Maybe tomorrow I can go for a full quad layout. Or maybe I can do a full quad and do the rest triple.’
“I think the main focus for me is just doing the whole program, all the jumps, all the spins, and getting that muscle memory in my head, because a lot of times, especially for me, I think if I’ve done a certain amount of triple jumps and I’m used to it, I can go and quadruple jumps are going to be a little bit easier, too, because I’ve been practicing muscle memory for a while.”
Milan Magic: Listen apple, spotify Or wherever you get your podcasts.
- male: Ilya Marinin, Maxim Naumov, Andrew Tolgashev
- woman: Amber Glenn, Alisa Liu
- pair: Ellie Kamm and Danny O’Shea. Emily Cheung and Spencer Akira Howe
- Ice dance: Madison Chock and Evan Bates. Emilea Zingas and Vadim Kolesnik. Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko
What you need to know Ellie Kamm, Daniel O’Shea
- year: Cam is 21 years old, O’Shea is 34 years old.
- height: Cam is 5-0, O’Shea is 6-0.
- Hometown: Both are from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- Olympic experience: beginning
- event: pair
What you need to know: The partnership, which began in 2022, will compete in the Olympics for the first time. Cam and O’Shea were the 2024 U.S. champions and have been trying to get back to that title ever since. They won a bronze medal at the 2025 U.S. Championships and had two more third-place finishes in the following two Grand Prix events, but this year they achieved their best finish of the season with second place, a big boost towards securing an Olympic berth.
