This is Ilia Malinin’s day.
The United States figure skating superstar is going for a gold medal as an individual, and it will all come down to the free skate.
Malinin had the best score in the short program, which will combine with the free skate score to determine what place he finishes in the overall standings for male individuals at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Competition gets underway at 1 p.m. ET (7 p.m. local time) on Friday in Italy, but that’s not when Malinin will take to the ice.
Here, we’ve got the full details on the schedule to make sure you don’t miss Ilia’s moment.
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What time does Ilia Malinin actually skate today?
Ilia Malinin officially skates at 4:48 p.m. ET on Friday.
That’ll be a 10:48 p.m. local time start, a late night.
He’s the last competitor on the entire slate thanks to his top score in the short program portion.
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Full men’s figure skating free program schedule
These are the start times (ET) for all 24 competitors, in order:
- Yu-Hsiang Li, Chinese Taipei: 1:08 p.m.
- Donovan Carrillo, Mexico: 1:15 p.m.
- Kao Miura, Japan: 1:23 p.m.
- Vladimir Samoilov, Poland: 1:31 p.m.
- Adam Hagara, Slovakia: 1:39 p.m.
- Lukas Britschgi, Switzerland: 1:47 p.m.
- Aleksandr Selevko, Estonia: 2:03 p.m.
- Deniss Vasiljevs, Latvia: 2:10 p.m.
- Matteo Rizzo, Italy: 2:18 p.m.
- Nika Gadze, Georgia: 2:26 p.m.
- Maxim Naumov, USA: 2:34 p.m.
- Boyang Jin, China: 2:42 p.m.
- Petr Gumennik, AIN: 3:13 p.m.
- Kyrylo Marsak, Ukraine: 3:20 p.m.
- Stephen Gogolev, Canada: 3:28 p.m.
- Shun Sato, Japan: 3:36 p.m.
- Andrew Torgashev, USA: 3:44 p.m.
- Kevin Aymoz, France: 3:52 p.m.
- Junhwan Cha, Korea: 4:08 p.m.
- Mikhail Shaidorov, Kazakhstan: 4:16 p.m.
- Daniel Grassl, Italy: 4:24 p.m.
- Adam Siao Him Fa, France: 4:32 p.m.
- Yuma Kagiyama, Japan: 4:40 p.m.
- Ilia Malinin, USA: 4:48 p.m.
The last six competitors had the six best scores in the short program and will be tough to leapfrog by all but the very best free skates.
Malinin has a lead of approximately five points. He skated the best free program in the team event, so he’s the favorite here for sure.
