“I was really motivated by Kevin’s skating,” said Malinin, the top seed for gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. “It really excited me and I was so happy for him. That really pushed me to try skating on that program, and of course, that wasn’t what I wanted today. So after a few mistakes, I just tried to regroup and strategize what I needed to do.

In ice dancing, U.S. world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates couldn’t overcome a glaring mistake in their rhythm dance Saturday, ultimately finishing second behind Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson of England.

Fear and Gibson finished with 206.38 points after Sunday’s free skate to become the first non-American team to win Skate America since Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder of France in 2008. Chock and Bates finished with 205.63 points, while Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck of Spain won the bronze medal with 189.44 points.

Malinin and Miura were separated by just 0.15 points after their short programs, but it was Aymoz who challenged Malinin for the top spot on the podium. The 27-year-old Frenchman, who struggled mightily at the end of last season, landed a pair of quads in an error-free program to score 190.84 points – the best of any free program – and move up to first place.

“I was super proud,” Aymoz said, “because I worked for the last six months.”

Nika Egadze of Georgia was next on the ice, but he fell on his first quad lutz and went out on his quad salchow, two errors that kept him from medal contention. He finished fourth with 261.71 points.

Miura, the 19-year-old former world junior champion, landed three quads during a routine to “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” the 1964 musical romantic drama film. But Miura lost points for a triple axel under -burped and onto a step sequence that led to a quad toe loop-triple toe loop combination halfway through his free skate.

Malinin was the last to take the ice, performing a set to “I’m Not a Vampire” by the rock band Falling In Reverse.

He opened with a perfect quad flip then hit a triple axel, although Malinin remains the only skater to land the quad version of the jump in competition. Then came the mistake, when he doubled a planned quadruple loop, leaving Malinin to make changes on the fly during the second half of the program to try to make up for lost points.

After getting his hands on his triple lutz, Malinin landed a quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop combination before a quad salchow-triple axel in sequence – a pair of huge jump passes that sent his technical score skyrocketing.

Malinin capped his routine’s recovery with a backflip during his choreographed sequence, a move that had been banned until this season due to its inherent danger. It was expected from the start, but it nevertheless provoked a roar from the crowd, just as Malinin’s program was coming to an end and a steady stream of stuffed animals was being thrown onto the ice.

“It was really hard for me, in the middle of the program, to think about what I should do, what I should do,” Malinin said when asked about the early mistake. “I just went to full autopilot and I’m glad I did.”